


Amends

by Sayarling



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Good Guy Berthold AU, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon, Romance, Young!Royai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 60,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29165358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sayarling/pseuds/Sayarling
Summary: Ask anyone in town and they’ll tell you - Berthold Hawkeye was a family man first and an alchemist second.Or, a pre-canon AU where Berthold Hawkeye is the man his wife needed and the father his daughter deserved.
Relationships: Berthold Hawkeye/Riza Hawkeye's Mother, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 25
Kudos: 66





	1. There's Some Doors in This House

**Author's Note:**

> Ever wondered what things would have been like if Berthold Hawkeye hadn't been an abominable, abusive dickhead? I sure have, and I bet you have too! Riza has suffered enough!
> 
> Content warning: there is a non-graphic description of animal abuse near the end of the chapter (involving a tattooed pig).

_Welcome to Heidel, Amestris’ amber jewel. Population 502 - or rather, 504 now, with the arrival of the new Mr. and Mrs. Berthold Hawkeye. All the way from glamorous East City, the newlyweds have come to start their married life together on the hills overlooking town, where Mr. Berthold Hawkeye has purchased a ghastly, gaunt manor by way of his inheritance. Mrs. Ava Hawkeye, nee Grumman, has already caught the eyes of gossiping townsfolk with her bright smile and cheerful clothing - very fashionable for ladies these days, no doubt straight from the hands of city seamstresses to the trunks of the fair young missus - and nearly causing heart palpitations for anyone proper to have observed Miss Ava in the driver's seat of their automobile! City folk, indeed!_

_Mr. Hawkeye seems to have a penchant for smoking tobacco and has been witnessed several times since their arrival walking to and from town to purchase snuff for his pipe and the occasional paper. Rumors have begun to circulate regarding their livelihoods, and it is widely assumed that Mr. Hawkeye makes a living as an alchemist, what with Mrs. Hawkeye’s frequent trips to the apothecary on his behalf and the suspicious revitalization of their home without purchasing the proper tools and fixings from the general store. Yet by the day, their home becomes brighter and livelier than it ever had in its previous prime, and what was once the butt of campfire stories concerning goblins and ghouls now begets itself the hopeful chatter of a town-wide ball!_

_As it turns out, despite their East City trappings of an automobile and fine clothes, the Hawkeyes don’t seem to care much for socializing, much to the town’s utter confusion. Conversations with Mr. Hawkeye - or rather, Master Hawkeye - are as rare as sightings of the man himself, who’s alchemic prowess is all but confirmed now with his daily comings and goings to the post office to collect his many mail-ordered oddities. His lady wife, upon further scrutiny, is an odd sprite of a woman with clothing frequently soiled by dirt and grass stains. Rather conspiratorial is the word of a governess who passed her in the town square and insisted Mrs. Hawkeye had spatters of blood on the sleeve of her shift, not unlike the patterns decorating the butcher’s apron! Did this woman hunt and gather in the woods behind their home like a beast, while her husband toiled away littering their home with transmutation circles and garish arrays? Who on earth are these people?_

* * *

“I’ve heard that you are a loathsome gargoyle who only allows me to leave the house once a week,” Ava recounts one evening at dinner. The venison stew is hearty and warm, and they inhale the steam from their bowls with watering mouths.

“Delicious,” Berthold comments and spoons the broth into his mouth. “My apologies, darling; I started that rumor. I was hoping the gargoyle part alone would catch on.”

“Nonsense,” Ava remarks. “Anyone could see that you’re far more a vampire than a gargoyle. Or, what is the one that only comes out at night?”

“Vampire is fine,” says Berthold. “Succubus is also acceptable. Or werewolf; fewer in frequency.”

“Succubus,” she asserts.

“I concede - succubus it is. I’ll start that one next.”

They laugh good-naturedly over the silliness of it all. And they thought East City was a nosy little small town! They had chosen Heidel for its picturesque country landscapes and quaint shops, with an excellent lack of religion and fair proximity to main thoroughfares. And best of all? It was quiet - or, it was supposed to be. Though, it seemed anonymity didn’t stop the rumor mill from churning. People must be bored.

“I went to the bank today to ring Mother on their payphone,” Ava says. “She cried the whole time. She said Father is still furious at us and thinks he was on the verge of a heart attack the entire first year we were gone.”

“Don’t believe a word of that,” Berthold warns. “Your mother would say anything to get you to come home. Your Father is a lot of things, but frail isn’t one. He’ll outlive both of us.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” she tutts, but reaches across the table to grasp her husband’s hand. Ava is warmth personified, her touch a sweet salve over her family’s anger. “I’m happy with our choices, Berthold. And I wish they understood. But it’s still important to me to keep in contact. I don’t want this feud to last forever.”

“You said yourself your Father was obtuse and judgmental--”

“And he is still my Father,” Ava interrupts. “A man I will always love and respect.”

Berthold smirks a little and squeezes her hand. “But not enough to obey him, eh, Birdy?”

“Because he raised me to know my own mind and follow my heart. A heart that belongs to you, my dear Berthold.”

“You flatter me, my lady,” he says with a satisfied grin. 

“One day, though,” she continues. “You will need to make amends.”

“Me!?” he sputters. 

“Because I’ve already made a point to make mine. And there is a little one on their way who needs to know their family,” she says. She rests her hand on the telltale swell of her abdomen. 

“When the time comes,” Berthold says. “I will swallow my pride.”

“Good,” Ava acquiesces.

“As long as your Father apologizes too.” 

Ava sighs.

* * *

Berthold was fifteen years old when he laid eyes on Ava Grumman for the first time.

General Raymond Hawkeye, newly retired, was as cold and fierce as the tundra of Fort Briggs from which he originally hailed, and his father before that, and his father before that. He was an imposing man of few words whose late foray into fatherhood, coupled with his penchant for solitude and brevity, produced a splintered sort of relationship with his only child that neither knew how to mend. It wasn’t that they clashed; they simply had nothing in common.

Raymond’s Eastern-born lady wife, Sophie, doted upon their son’s love of science and chemistry endlessly, thus cementing a disappointing inevitable end to a long military lineage of which Raymond was immensely proud. Surely, in addition to his mother’s academic proclivities, young Berthold had also inherited a sharp, independent mind and a stubbornness more concentrated than a mule mare. Though, neither Raymond nor Sophie could explain away Berthold’s distrust of authority and frequently lectured him on the benefits of holding his tongue. Their warnings became more insistent after they’d been invited out of the blue to a dinner party at which they were honored guests by extension of General Hawkeye. Personal guests of Major Geralt Grumman and his wife, Claudette.

Berthold’s spry mind and fiery tongue aside, he was an obedient boy who understood how important this evening was to his father. It was, duty aside, a reunion of sorts between Raymond and his old subordinate from long ago. 

Berthold’s apathy toward the military was in part due to the brutish sort of way Amestris tended to regard its conflicts, but indeed he also asserted it was because of the sheer number of interesting things to do with one’s life instead. He had just taken up alchemy the year before and had already improved so quickly that he was confident his inquiries to secure an apprenticeship would yield fruit. 

So consumed was he with his interests that he’d barely had time to consider the fairer sex, what with their frilly dresses, cakey cosmetics, and hair curled and piled atop their heads like peacocks. 

He knew he’d take a wife one day, but he resigned himself to the idea that his mother would likely take the lead in arranging his match for him, as his parent’s parents had done for them. He’d marry whoever they told him to and they’d raise a child or two and he could continue with his alchemy and the cycle would start all over again.

That was, of course, until he found himself seated across the table from the Grumman’s youngest daughter, a pretty young lady with pale blonde hair and wild green eyes, who turned out to be not at all what he thought. 

* * *

Since that first evening with the Grummans, the Hawkeyes had been invited back to dine often. It was during these dinners that propriety had thawed and Raymond and Geralt had eased back into a friendship, rather than two formal colleagues talking shop. Berthold and Ava would frequently steal away to the modest study across the hall; Ava would tinker with the piano-forte for a bit before losing interest, while Bertold picked through the Hawkeyes’ collection of books. 

“This is mostly poetry,” Berthold realized aloud.

“My father loves it,” she said. “Poetry, art, fantastical stories. Mother says he has a vivid imagination.”

“I thought military men were made of hard edges and gunpowder,” he quipped. “Ate bullets for breakfast and all that.”

That made her smile. “Is your father like that, then?”

He thought for a moment but answered, “No. Not all the time.”

Late night dinners gave way to sunny afternoons, with Mrs. Hawkeye and Mrs. Grumman having struck up a kinship. It was during one of those happy summer days where the ladies had taken tea and finger sandwiches in the courtyard together, and Berthold given permission to explore the grounds to his leisure, that he came across a wide expanse behind the family home. 

There, a wispy figure stood gripping a firearm with deft fingers that didn’t seem at all hesitant. Behind her perched Major Grumman, hands folded behind his back. He didn’t speak or deliver instruction but merely observed his daughter with keen eyes as she fired. Her bullets snapped through the exoskeletons of glass bottles and jars set up across the field, a tinkling, melodic sound that made the hairs stand up on Berthold’s arms, though he hadn't the faintest idea why that could be.

What a strange girl, he thought.

* * *

The Grummans have an older daughter, Emily, who turns 18 at the beginning of the summer, and as such is set to be presented to society as a marriage-eligible young lady. Having completed her formal education at one of Amestris’ finest boarding schools, and an accomplished artist and singer in her own right, Emily Grumman’s debut at her first societal cotillion is all Claudette can seem to talk about.

“First impressions make or break the social season,” Claudette chirps nervously as she flutters about the parlor. “I don’t want to frighten her, but it’s vitally important she inspires a good match! Sooner rather than later!”

Earlier that year, one of Berthold’s alchemical experiments gone awry had resulted in quite a bit of damage to the Hawkeye home. As punishment, in addition to lengthy repairs that he was in charge of resolving himself, Berthold had also been sentenced to accompany his lady mother on all her errands and social calls. Therefore, Berthold spends a lot of time with his mother. His mother spends a lot of time with Claudette. Claudette spends a lot of time fretting about Emily’s marriage prospects.

Berthold holds back a smirk. Ava had shared that as a girl she’d been rejected from almost every boarding school her parents inquired about because of her history of getting into scraps at school. The only place willing to meet her was a day school for young ladies just miles away, and she’d shown up for her interview looking a fright with leaves in her hair, her skirts covered in grass stains, her boots caked in mud. She’d taken extra care to eat a pail’s worth of berries on her walk to the school. When she smiled, she granted the interviewing board a personal look at her blue and purple-stained teeth!

Speaking of. He keeps glancing over his shoulder hoping Ava will appear and take him away from this awful place. He’d never had much of a fondness for guns but he feels the urge to shoot something; it winds tighter inside him the more Claudette talks of gowns and prospects.

“She’s not home,” Claudette announces. She’s seen him fidgeting. “Ava and Emily are in town getting fitted for their cotillion gowns. Sophie, you’re so lucky you have a son. Dresses for young ladies these days are astronomically expensive. Geralt’s convinced they’ll bankrupt us.”

“Ava too?” Sophie remarks, surprised.

He’s sure he can’t restrain the way his eyes pop at the revelation. The thought of Ava out in society already makes Berthold’s eye twitch. She’s barely sixteen!

“Oh, yes,” Claudette says with a heavy nod and a long-suffering sigh. “With her sister making her debut, Ava is eligible to attend as a junior debutante. I swear they make these things up just to keep the modiste in business. She’s not eligible to accept any proposals until she’s of age, but it’s a good chance for her to become familiar with some of the other families.”

“I’m surprised she’d go willingly,” Berthold observes wryly, and then blushes madly when he realizes he’s spoken out very suddenly. Claudette doesn’t notice the blunder and emits an undignified snort. 

“Quite right,” she says through chuckles. “Ava has become more amenable over the years, but she’s still not pleased we’re making her go.” She gasps and claps her hands. “You know, Berthold, you could come along as guests of the family to keep her company! Oh, all of you should!”

It honestly sounds awful. But, he remembers, Ava has a way of making the dullest things seem interesting - and this is a significant challenge she’d be caught dead turning down. Still, it’ll take some work. He’s stuck thinking about how they could possibly make a stuffy cotillion ball fun when his mother enthusiastically answers on his behalf. 

“We’d be delighted!”

So goes the rest of the afternoon. Berthold has made more work for himself by speaking out and privately grouses about it. But perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst thing; he imagines Ava’s incredulous reaction and smirks..

* * *

Agreeing to attend the cotillion was a terrible idea. Berthold curses himself for uttering a word that blasted day in the Grumman’s parlor. He curses his mother for agreeing at all.

Their fathers didn’t even come! Raymond and Geralt were probably off smoking cigars and winning each other’s money playing poker in some military buddy’s home, laughing it up and retelling the same old droll stories. Even that sounded more preferable to whatever _this_ dog and pony show turned out to be.

And Berthold had things to do himself. He’d received a letter just that afternoon from an alchemy master in Xing but he hadn’t the chance to open it. It was driving him mad. He was positively buzzing with anticipation, but his mother had ushered him away before he could read the letter to get him stitched up into his abominably itchy suit (he had to admit it did look quite fetching, but the sweating and the prickling made its handsomeness all but moot). The letter still sat unopened in his bedroom. 

Though his unopened letter isn’t even the worst part. The worst part, by far, is Ava. Ava, who’d appeared before him with no warning looking the prettiest he’d ever seen her in a pale green dress and long white gloves. A delicate diamond necklace adorns her slender throat and a pair of matching earrings glisten on her lobes. Her pale blonde hair is twirled up into a complex web of plaits and curls accentuated with little golden pins and ornaments. Someone had applied a soft pink rouge to her cheeks and lips, and with her curious pout and wide green eyes, she looks just like a true lady. 

He is speechless.

He is utterly done for.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Ava says in an uncharacteristically breathless voice. He hadn’t noticed before, but with the way her expressive eyes trace him all the way from his head to his toes, she surely gives away that she too is experiencing a similar predicament. 

His voice comes out low and choked. “So am I,” he lies. 

The orchestra is too loud to speak without leaning very close, and Berthold is quite afraid to stand so close to her lest he spontaneously combusts. He stands stiffly while she gazes out to the dance floor, swarmed with couples and flashes of color from the sea of swirling gowns. Berthold is about to clear his throat to excuse himself for some fresh air - why is it so hot in winter? - when Ava reaches over and places a delicate hand on his wrist.

“Would you like to dance?”

Berthold gulps. Her face is so open with affection, so earnest. This was a bad idea, he thinks, but his heart is faster than his brain, and he nods. 

“Wait,” he exclaims, suddenly frozen when she pulls on his hand. “Are we allowed? We’re not really...part of this. 

“Sure we can,” she asserts and takes a brave step closer. She is infuriatingly close now. Those eyes consume his entire world. “We can do whatever we want.”

* * *

After a while, dusk-time strolls through the garden had become as common as Berthold’s presence itself at the Grumman family home. Their newfound closeness was a rather electrifying development as well, and one he was quite pleased with. 

But it all was beginning to feel a bit bittersweet. With Ava’s hand wrapped tightly around his arm, Berthold found himself at an emotional crossroad. The Xingese master from his letter had offered him an alluring apprenticeship, which Berthold had accepted without hesitation. That had been months ago, and now his days spent in Ava’s orbit were coming to a close. 

He was desperate to begin his apprenticeship. That ambition hadn’t changed. But he felt strangely hollow, tonight especially, with the weight of truth on their shoulders. This would be the last time they saw each other for some time; potentially, years would separate them from this day. This was unfortunate, as Berthold had realized quite suddenly that he may be very much in love.

“I leave for my apprenticeship in a few days’ time,” he muses. Their steps have become slow, almost like a dirge, in an effort to extend their fleeting time together however possible. “Might I write to you?”

“You might,” she says with a wry smile. “I might not answer.”

He chuckles. He reaches over with his free hand to interlace it with hers, where it sits above the curve of his elbow. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind after some time apart. You like talking to me; writing isn't so different.” 

Above them, the apple blossom tree is heavy with fragrant, pink sprigs. He stops to pluck a full blossom from a lowing branch and offers it to her. She snatches it out of his hand and fastens it into her braid with a toothy smile.

“Xing is far,” he says. “Perhaps too far to visit. But I’ll think of you all the while.”

“I’d visit Xing, not you,” she says with a good-natured squeeze. “All of that culture and history is much more interesting than whatever it is you’re going there to do.”

“To study alchemy,” he reminds her.

“I know,” she stresses. “I’m teasing you, silly. Now, I promised you one last adventure, didn't I? Are you coming, or are you going to stand there and moon at me all night?”

Mooning at her doesn't sound half bad - especially since there is always a chance he won’t come home unscathed from one of Ava Grumman’s adventures. All the same, he follows her blindly when she tugs on his hands to guide him toward the broken trellis in the garden, where the twining ivy had grown over the gap. She pulls aside the leafy blanket for them to slip out of the garden and away from the family home. He is dumbfounded, yet again, by this truly wild girl, and how easily she seems to enamor him.

She leads him deep into the forest, past the line of broken glass from her target practice glittering prettily in the moonlight, past the stray shotgun shells that had flown deep into the foliage off an errant shot. He can hear a rush of water in the distance that grows steadily in volume until he can clearly see a wide creek coming into view, close to overflowing. She guides him to a freshly fallen tree, still sturdy, and encourages him to sit beside her.

“No mud tonight? No scaling mountains, or a chance I’ll ruin my clothes?” he asks, amused.

“Not tonight,” Ava says. She slips her cool hand into his and turns to him, her mischievous features suddenly quite serious in the dark. “Tell me again how long you’ll be gone, Berthold.”

He considers it. He imagines he’ll be studying with his master for some time before striking off on his own as a journeyman alchemist, but he’s not sure yet where his ambition will take him. Depending on what his master could share with him, perhaps he’d be traveling for a long while, too. 

“I can’t say,” he says honestly after a while. “Three years? Four? It’s all a guess for now.”

Ava nods solemnly, a soft blush turning the apples of her cheeks a charming pink.

“That’s what I thought,” she admits. “Do...do apprentices ever...take leave?”

“I’ll go on holiday occasionally as we do in school, I think. If I want.”

“If you want?”

“It helps when there’s something to come back to.”

Ava stares at their interlocked hands, and then allows herself to peer up to his face. Berthold’s cheeks are warming fast, and he thinks they each might be leading up to the same conversation. 

“So that means,” she muses, “That by the time you’re finished with your apprenticeship, you’ll be about 20. And I, 19.”

“Yes.”

“Marrying age.”

“Yes.”

They spend a few tense moments staring at each other very hard like they were trying to read the other’s mind without giving away the thing they each wanted very much to ask.

“Do...do alchemists get married?” she asks so softly he almost has to read her lips to understand her. 

He nods dumbly. “Oh, yes. Many do.” How are her eyes so big? She is gripping his hand hard, and he is returning the grip so earnestly he thinks their hands might be going numb. “It’s not easy being married to an alchemist, though. It’s not at all like your life.”

Ava doesn’t even blink. “Oh,” she breathes. “Well, I don’t mind.”

That’s enough to seal it. If he doesn’t say what’s in his heart, he’ll regret it forever.

“Do you think,” Berthold starts. Stops. Clear his throat. “Do you think you’d wait for me while I’m gone?”

An elated smile breaks out across her face. She is beaming so hard he swears it’s daylight for how it lights up his entire world. Her voice is soft but sure. 

“I think I would wait forever for you, Berthold.”

* * *

Xing is a wonder! Berthold is enchanted at how different it is from Amestris, how everything from the clothing to the food to the history to the culture is just saturated in color and passion. His master is the most eccentric person he’s ever met, so full of energy and creativity. It complements his left brain in an elegant, though explosive way. 

The first year of Berthold’s apprenticeship is rife with mischief, mostly instigated by Master Kuo, and he is thankful for the remoteness of his master’s home on the outskirts of civilization. It is close enough to town that they have all their necessities at arm’s reach, but far enough out in the desert that no one bothers them. This is just as well, because as he finds out, his master’s specialty is elemental alchemy. They spend their days stirring up dust storms and coaxing rain from the sky, convincing the earth to crack and move beneath them. His master has never been compatible with fire, however, and Berthold thinks about that a lot.

Everyone in Xing grows their hair long. Master Kuo says it's tradition because the Imperial family has been doing it for generations. Berthold can’t imagine why anyone in Xing, which must be incrementally closer to the sun than the rest of the world for how hot it is, would want to wear their hair long. 

But like master, like pupil. Berthold’s cropped hair reaches his shoulders at the end of the first year.

As it turns out, weeks pass for mail to travel between Xing and Amestris. Those implications hadn’t bothered him much; he’d left home in a good place with Ava, and he’s sure that a constant flow of love letters aren’t needed for him to be sure of their place together. But when a letter comes from his mother, postmarked a month prior, sharing that his father had passed away in his sleep, Berthold feels a hollow sort of abandonment that he hadn’t expected. For the first time in his young life, he feels the acute sting of guilt. True that they hadn’t been close, but his father was a good man who he loved and respected. He wished he would have been able to say goodbye.

Raymond has been buried for weeks by the time that letter has reached him. Even if he’d found out earlier, he’d never have made it home in time. Travel from Amestris to Xing, and vice versa, is a fatal endeavor at worst and challenging at best. Elemental conflicts are easy enough to avoid with his newfound training, but bandits and poisonous animals litter the sand dunes. It’s dangerous to go alone.

It is unavoidable that an apprenticeship so far and remote would yield unpleasant truths. So at the end of Berthold's third year, when he receives a letter from Claudette, he feels the dread sinking into his gut at the contents he knows it must contain. Claudette wouldn’t write to him unless something had happened to his mother. And to his heart’s deepest fear, he’s correct. Claudette’s message shares the dismal details of his mother’s passing at the hands of an aggressive bout of pneumonia. She sends her apologies and comforts, but this one too is postmarked from several weeks past. The date of the funeral Claudette includes is long gone.

Berthold throws himself into his studies as he had after his father’s passing, but this time it’s poignantly more obsessive and frantic. He finds it unbearable to be idle, hates the way his mind slides easily into dark places under the insidious guise of happy memories. His master gives him time to mourn, but Berthold can’t bear it. He fills his days intended for rest and recovery with work. Various labors around the house, hauling water, helping with chores and children. Anything to push away his last memories of his mother’s smiling face, waving to him as his carriage rounded the block from their family home in East City.

The Xingese have a way of dealing with death that is different from what he is used to. Amestrians stuff their grief into a trunk inside their minds and lock it with a key, then bury the trunk under other heavier things. The grief trunk hardens until it sinks, and it stays buried with the ghosts inside. It's a stark contrast to Drachma’s wailing rituals that his father used to describe, claiming that when the Drachman king died many decades ago that a great keening wail could be heard all the way to Fort Briggs, so shrill and enduring that the Briggsman thought they were under attack.

He gets a taste of this difference between Xing and Amestris - and even Drachma - during his master’s family’s observance of Qingming. Master Kuo and his son Shui travel to the imperial city on a bright spring day to clean the graves of their ancestors. Master Kuo’s wife, Ying Yue, is heavily pregnant; she stays behind with 2-year-old Hua and keeps Berthold company. Though he won’t see the traditional tomb-cleaning firsthand, Ying Yue describes how Master Kuo and Shui will take care to clear their ancestors' graves of grime and debris. He watches as Ying Yue painstakingly prepares the favored foods of the departed that Kuo and Shui will share; she leaves aside enough that she can conduct her own observation from home. She packs it in a sturdy basket, plus a favored heavy wine and incense. Master Kuo pockets a few yuan to purchase fresh-cut flowers on their way.

“There is life after death,” Ying Yue explains to Berthold after Master Kuo and Shui have left. “That is how we see things. We mourn our loved ones, yes, but we will see them again. The physical world ends, but we move on.”

Berthold thinks about this often while he heals from his mother’s passing. It makes him feel a sense of peace, that if what the Xingese believe is true, he’ll see both of his parents again someday. The concept of this supposed afterlife helps ease the pain more and more each day. 

Eventually, Ava’s letters stop coming. They’ve kept up a long correspondence that has dwindled over the years, which Berthold thinks is realistic considering. He misses her dearly, but not enough to give up the progress he’s made as an alchemist. Now four years into his apprenticeship, his knowledge and power have grown in leaps and bounds. Master Kuo decides that his apprenticeship has ended, and it’s time to go on the road.

As a journeyman alchemist, he can now be paid for his services. Master Kuo and Ying Yue gather up the children and the bare essentials, and together they travel from their desert home deep into Xing to the towns and villages across the country working for the people. Berthold becomes a bit of a novelty, what with his long copper hair, whiskey-colored eyes, and long, pointed nose. In short, nothing the remote villages of Xing have ever seen before. 

From Xing, they travel back across the desert and south into Aerugo. It’s just as hot as Xing but humid like Amestris, with endless blue skies, warm, luxurious waters, and white sands fine as powder. They pick their way across the southern rim of Aerugo and up north to Creta. Every day is a new adventure, and Berthold realizes this is the happiest he’s ever been in his life. Still, the burdens of constant traveling are taking their toll. His master is not the young man he used to be when he himself was a nomadic journeyman alchemist before he had married and started his family. So at the two-year mark of their departure from Xing, they cross the border from Creta into eastern Amestris and start the journey home.

There is a train that stops at a military outpost not far from the Cretan border. Berthold arranges travel for the master’s family, who now might as well be as true as his blood family. The train makes frequent stops throughout the country; it will take nearly three full days from their initial boarding to a similarly located desert outpost in the west. They pass through East City without much pomp or circumstance; he doesn’t make a move to ogle or even reminisce. 

There is nothing for him there any longer. From Ava’s last letters, she had shared that her father had been promoted to Colonel and the family was relocating from East City to Central City to accommodate his new command. That had to have been at least two years ago. 

Privately, Berthold knew in his heart that he’d disembark in Central. Master Kuo must know, too, because he doesn’t seem at all surprised when at the end of their second travel day, when the conductor calls for Central City-bound passengers to prepare to detrain, Berthold rises and bows to him.

“You’re a master now,” he asserts with pride. “You are a man of learning and experience. Go, and make your own path...Master Hawkeye.”

They embrace tightly, and Berthold shares fond farewells with Ying Yue, Shui, Hua, and little Jingfei. He steps off the train, skin freckled by the sun and long hair bound with a red string. He presses his canvas cap to his head, grips his suitcase, and goes forth.

* * *

For once, Ava is grateful for the slow quiet of a solitary Saturday evening. 

Mother and Father are out for the night playing cards with their friends. William had rung her earlier in the evening to let her know he’d made it to East City without incident. Emily had been by earlier in the day for tea, or as much as the baby would let her drink. Ava laughs aloud, thinking of the ringer her sister’s pregnancy is putting her through. Serves her right for being so perfect her whole life! Babies don’t care about any of that. 

“Soon enough you’ll eat your words,” Emily had huffed at her while she fanned herself under the parasol. “I look forward to the day I can tease _you_ for whining about swollen feet.”

 _Soon enough indeed_ , Ava thinks. Light catches her engagement ring just right, sending a kaleidoscope of color dancing onto the wall. She wiggles the bauble back and forth for a moment, and sighs. 

Berthold never came home. Letters were few, even with the considerable lead time needed for postage. Both of his parents were laid to rest without him. She remembered him guessing he’d be back within three or four years, and she’d clung to that timeline like it was gospel. But after the fourth year passed, and then a fifth, and sixth without hide nor hair of him, Ava resigned herself. It was a teenage romance, a passing fancy, and nothing more. 

A pity, though. She’d liked him. Maybe even loved him. 

William was nice, though. She’d met him through mutual friends at a holiday party last winter. He was a businessman, smart and accomplished (“And rich!” Mother squawked), and they got on famously. 

She’d learned after Berthold left how to temper her wilder impulses. She hadn’t fired a gun or climbed a tree in years, instead choosing activities decidedly more demure. She felt lucky that William chose her. Certainly, he didn’t seem to mind that she lacked the accomplishments of most young eligible ladies her age. He said they’d have staff to take care of most of the household. She’d be able to do anything she wanted, with his permission - and his funding.

She could do worse, she supposed. Her life was just fine. It was...fine.

It’s too early to go to bed, but Ava is lazy from the day’s activities and there isn’t much else to do. She rises from the parlor room intent on making herself a cup of peppermint tea when the gong of the doorbell startles her. Huffing, she wrenches the door open without ceremony, ready to give a piece of her mind to someone who would think to call after ten. But when she takes in the hardened form of the man she thought a ghost, she can’t help but gasp. 

A seventeen-year-old boy left East City. Now, a man stands before her, broad-chested and tall. He’s grown into his long nose, and it accentuates the sharp lines of his jaw with an aristocratic elegance that the upper crust would die to achieve. When he’d left all those years ago, his military-style crop cut was crisp and harsh; now, his long copper hair, sleek in its low ponytail, betrays his worldliness. Then there are those sharp, narrowed whiskey eyes that seem to see straight into her. Eyes she’d given up all hope of seeing again, especially turned on her like this.

Berthold.

* * *

Ava.

The girl he left behind has vanished; in her place stands a woman, so beautiful and familiar that his throat tightens and he fights the urge to loosen his tie. She is staring at him with unrestrained shock, pressing a palm firmly to her diaphragm to force herself to keep breathing. He’s not far behind her and reaches one hand out to grip the railing. 

“My apologies for the late hour,” he forces out. 

Ava glares at him incredulously. “Nonsense,” she says, but her tone says otherwise.

“I would offer for you to come inside, but I’m alone.”

“I was hoping so,” he replies, and they both blush red. “I mean--I mean I wanted the chance to speak with you, is all. I was hoping you had time for an old friend.”

Ava leans her head against the door jam and inhales very, very deeply, then exhales harshly all at once. When she straightens, she fixes him with a blank stare and steps aside, gesturing for him to enter.

He’s never been to the Grumman’s Central City home before; they’d moved after he’d left for Xing. But he knows this process and makes for the parlor room while Ava stalks down the hall into the kitchen and returns a few minutes later with two steaming cups of tea. She pointedly avoids looking at him and fidgets constantly, as if she is uncomfortable in her own skin. He’d never known her to be like that before. 

“I take it your apprenticeship has been most enlightening,” Ava says through nearly gritted teeth. She fiddles with the handle of her teacup. 

“It has,” Berthold confirms. “Most enlightening. I’ve spent the last two years traveling.”

“Oh? Anywhere I’d know?”

“Aerugo,” he says. “Creta. All over Xing.”

She looks nearly impressed, but schools her features quickly. “I take it, then, that you have business in Central City?”

He smiles, regarding her with a fond look. “Yes, Miss. I’ve come to retrieve something I left behind.”

“Oh,” she says, deliberately naive. “A piece of property, perhaps? Your inheritance? Family heirlooms?”

“You know that’s not what I had in mind.”

She scoffs, and the withering look she gives him makes him flinch. 

“Well, then, what is it, Berthold? What material possession have you come all the way to Amestris to retrieve? Surely it can’t be a _someone_ , because as you know, people are not _things._ ”

She punctuates her speech with a long, shaky sip of tea, leading with her left hand. It has the desired effect, as Berthold locks in on the ring without further hints.

“So I am too late after all.”

She resists the urge to throw her cup at him.

“Too late?!” Ava cries, springing from her chair. “Of course you’re too late! I waited years for you, Berthold, and I barely heard from you but a handful of times. How was I supposed to know you hadn’t changed your mind? I had nothing but a few pieces of parchment to tell me you were even alive, let alone still serious--”

She pinches her brow between two fingers and lets out a ragged breath. Turning away from him, she moves to stand in front of the volumes of books on the opposite wall. She takes time to compose herself.

Behind her, Berthold’s chair squeals as he rises, and slowly makes his way across the room to stand directly behind her. 

“I thought of you often,” he says softly. “I know that doesn’t change a thing. But I want you to know, I thought of you the whole time. During my apprenticeship. My journeymanship. I threw myself into it, Ava. Alchemy is my entire being. And I achieved what I set out to do. I’m a master.”

She is so, so still. 

“I did it for me,” he continues. “But now, I think, I did it to be worthy of you, too. You deserve someone good. Someone who can take care of you.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” she snaps. He’d reached a hand out to touch her, but at her scorned voice, he retracts it. 

“I’m glad you were able to do what you set out to do,” she starts again. Softer, defeated. “Don’t think I’m not proud of you, Berthold, because I am. But don’t you hide behind any expectations of mine to make yourself feel better...I never had _any_ _requirements_ for you to be worthy of me.” At this, she turns around to face him, her eyes welling with tears. “Don’t you understand? I just wanted _you_.”

They are entirely too alone and entirely too close. The only sound in the room is the crackling embers of a dying fire, and their heartbeats pounding in their ears. 

“And now?” Berthold asks very, very quietly. “Has that changed?”

Her hands are shaking. His gaze is so dark and penetrating, she knows that he’ll know if she lies. So instead she says, “I’m engaged.”

Berthold takes a step forward so that the only space between them is the distance where their breaths commingle before them. He can count every eyelash from this vantage point, catch every tremble of her lips. 

Just as quietly, he asks again, “Has that changed?”

The hitch in Ava’s breath is the only warning he gets before she kisses him. Her anger has not abated in the slightest, and she pulverizes him with harsh clashes of lips and tongues and teeth. Berthold pushes back in kind, sliding his hands to her waist and pushing her back, step by step, against the bookshelf behind her. Their kisses are harsh and hurried until he sinks his teeth into her lip, and she yelps. He pulls away from her, both of them panting. Staring. Incredulous. 

Is this happening? 

They catch their breaths as the heat dissipates from the room. Berthold reaches for her face and cups a soft, flushed cheek in his palm. When she leans into him he steps forward again, this time dropping a slow, sweet kiss on her swollen lips, then pressing his forehead tightly to hers. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I missed you so much. I had to see you.”

“I missed you too,” she admits. “And I’m glad you came.”

He takes two great steps back from her, and they both take a moment to straighten their clothes and run fingers through their mussed hair. 

“Will you stay in Central for a while?” she asks and makes her way to the sideboard. She extracts a bottle of whiskey and pours herself a shot’s worth. The first sip is smooth and oaky, and it decompresses her shoulders instantly. 

Berthold shakes his head. “Just the night. I set out for the south tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she says. “So soon.”

“Yes.”

“I hear the climate is very tepid there this time of year.”

“Yes, very. A good place to stay and work for a while.”

The air around them has changed from charged, to weary, to melancholic all within the span of a few minutes. She nods weakly and sets the whiskey tumbler down as he hovers by the parlor room threshold. 

“I suppose I should be going--”

“Right, yes, I’ll see you out--”

They stumble a bit around each other, dizzy from the headiness of their hurried kisses. She follows closely behind him and reaches for the doorknob, only for him to beat her to it. Their hands collide in the confusion, and their frantic apologies to each other lack focus. 

“Well, then,” he says as he clears his throat. “Congratulations again on your engagement Miss Ava. I wish you and your fiance a long and happy marriage.”

She nods numbly and stares at her ring. It had always felt heavy and foreign on her finger, but now she’s seeing it in a new light. It’s not that it looks peculiar, though it does - in truth, it just looks wrong. 

_This is wrong,_ she thinks, and she stops Berthold from opening the door with a quick hand on his wrist. 

“What if,” she says shakily. “What if I told you I didn’t want your congratulations?”

“Ava,” he warns. 

She shakes her head, ignoring him. “What if I went with you? What if we married instead?”

He sighs. “Ava, don’t.”

“No, I -- I’m sure this - _\- this--”_ She pulls her engagement ring off her finger and holds it in front of him. “This isn’t what I want.”

“I told you before,” he warns. “An alchemist’s wife doesn’t lead an easy life.”

“And I told you I didn’t care,” she affirms. “You aren’t too late if you don’t want to be.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but a cacophony of squealing outside startles them both so much they jump. It turns into a drunk woman’s grating voice crooning "Danny Boy" accompanied by the telltale giggling of an equally inebriated man. 

“My parents,” Ava groans. Then, realization sparks and the color drains from her face. “My _parents!”_

She snatches Berthold’s hand and drags him down the hall, through the kitchen, and shoves him into the mudroom at the back of the house. There is a rear door to their yard here but it’s wedged shut, and Berthold kicks at it while Ava peeks through the crack in the swinging door. She waves her hand at him and he stills. Together, they press their ears to the kitchen door and listen with bated breaths as the Grummans stumbled into their home, hollering nonsense at one another. 

“Look! Look! Oh, Ava must have left out tea for us! Isn’t she a dear?” Claudette exclaims. 

“How thoughtful!” Geralt agrees. “Come on, let’s take it up to bed with us. I’m bushed.”

Ava’s shoulders slump in relief. Geralt and Claudette’s labored footsteps slump slowly up the stairs. Berthold realizes that in the scuffle, he’d pressed his entire front against Ava’s back. He’s tall enough that he’d been resting his chin atop her head. The fear of getting caught has dissipated, and pure relief lingers in its wake. The world reduces to just the two of them yet again; he crooks his head to press a kiss to her temple. 

Ava turns in the circle of his arms to stretch up and kiss him. This time, their lips meet slow and soft, their long-standing affection taking the place of that fiery frustration that had pushed them together just minutes before. It’s sweet and pleasant and feels just right, kissing in the dark like this.

Berthold pulls apart to take her face in his hands, smoothing his thumbs up the arches of her cheeks as he’d always wanted to. 

“Come away with me,” he whispers. “Be my wife.”

“Yes,” she murmurs. He dips his head to kiss her again. He can feel her lips forming words against his: yes, yes, yes.

She winds her arms around his shoulders and pushes up onto her tip-toes to deepen their kisses, her body against him coaxing him to take step after step backward until he is pressed against the back door. All of a sudden, the door gives way under their combined weight and springs open with a loud slap against the siding. Ava gasps and Berthold stumbles, but she snags his hand and keeps him from careening down rickety wooden steps. They hold very still, but the noise hasn’t seemed to give them away. 

Berthold rights himself on the steps and clasps her hands. 

“Tomorrow night,” he whispers frantically. “Wait until they’ve gone to bed. Meet me outside and we’ll go. I’ll find someone to marry us, and we’ll take the train south. We can--”

He pauses to take in the way Ava is looking at him. Her beatific smile has lit up her entire face, and her eyes are shining with such open adoration it makes his heart throb in his chest. Berthold is sick in love. 

“We’re really doing this,” he marvels. 

“Yes,” she confirms. “We really are.”

Berthold surges forward and with a palm on the back of her neck, pulls her into a searing kiss. He then breaks away, and with the lingering heat of Ava’s hand on his cheek, he walks on air the entire way to the inn. 

* * *

Something is wrong in the Grumman household.

Ava’s parents had gone to bed hours ago. Berthold watches from an alley across from the home as the house lights slowly turn off, one by one, at the hands of the house staff. Funny, he thinks. He hadn’t remembered any staff in the house the previous evening. Maybe they’d been given the night off. 

The light in Ava’s room is aglow and has been since the world had grown dark. He can’t see clearly into the house, but through the haze of her sheer curtains, he can see her pacing back and forth in her room. Packing, hovering. 

He thinks he can pinpoint when it all goes wrong. At some point, Ava leaves her room, and suddenly her silhouette appears in the parlor. She appears to be picking a few books off of the shelves while peering apprehensively over her shoulder. Meanwhile, he realizes there is someone else in her room moving about. The mysterious visitor slips out just before she ascends the stairs again, and then, Ava becomes frantic. 

The lights fly on in what Berthold assumes is her parents’ bedroom. Then, the lights in the hall. Then, every light on the first floor. And then the front door is flown open, and Berthold sinks into the shadows as Geralt Grumman emerges onto the front porch, scanning the streets back and forth and back and forth with beady, bespectacled eyes. He stands there glowering into the darkness before slinking back into the house, hollering for Claudette. He sees how General Grumman’s adversaries tremble his presence; even in his nightclothes, is an intimidating man. 

They know.

Still, he waits. The family congregates into the parlor and he can hear the faint warbles of Geralt’s loud admonitions seeping through the walls of the home, pouring into the night air. He can’t make out the words, but he doesn’t have to. Geralt is livid. Claudette is sobbing. A staff member, perhaps a lady’s maid, hovers in the background trembling like a leaf. Then, there is Ava in the center of it all. She stands tall amongst the chaos like a deity, hands planted on her hips and her jaw set. She doesn’t flinch, barely blinks, while her father lambastes her mercilessly. 

Eventually, there’s nothing left to be said. Geralt dismisses everyone to bed, and Claudette takes Ava roughly by the elbow and drags her upstairs like she were a child. Still, Geralt remains in the parlor, the dimming light highlighting the gaunt hollows of his face. He flops in a chair and massages his temples, looking older than Berthold had ever seen him.

Ava is shoved into her room, the door slamming behind her. She pulls on it roughly - they must have locked it from the outside - and pounds on it with both of her fists. She slumps against it soon enough and stares straight ahead. Finally, she drags herself to lean against her window and brushes the curtains aside. He can see her face clearly in the darkness, and even though she can’t see him, she makes a pushing-down motion with her hand, and he gets the message. Wait it out. 

Geralt falls asleep in the parlor with the lights on. Berthold can see his head tipped back over the wing of his chair, his mouth wide open and surely emitting an obnoxious snore. Ava, previously perched on her bed, is moving deathly slow, like she is caught in a pool of molasses. She tiptoes to her window and spends an exhausting amount of time opening it centimeters at a time, slow and steady. By the time she gets the window up high enough that she can comfortably lean out of it, Berthold has scuttled across the street and pressed himself flush against the front of the house. 

He peeks up into the first-floor window; Geralt is still deeply asleep. Above him, Ava is holding a suitcase and he opens his arms to catch it. It lands with a heavy _slap_ in his arms. They repeat the process with another matching suitcase. 

Then, Ava sticks her head out the window and cranes as far as she can, leaning toward a rickety trellis that lines the side of the house closest to her window. Berthold cuts off a concerned yelp when she stumbles, and he waves his arms frantically to get her attention. He shakes his head vigorously. She nods hers with just as much force.

She bends down to tie her skirts in a big knot high and tight on her leg. The extra range of motion helps her to climb out her window with the grace of a jungle cat. There is a little lip on the exterior of the home below her window with just enough space for her to raise on her tiptoes and shuffle slowly across the exterior before she can manage a safe grip at the front of the trellis. Berthold watches on, utterly paralyzed and more impressed by her than he’s been of anyone in his life.

She secures a foothold in the trellis and scurries down the side of the house like an insect. Hopping away and onto the gravel below, Berthold meets her and crushes her in a bruising kiss. 

“Beautifully done, darling,” he praises her. 

“Thank you, dearest,” she croons sweetly. With one last peck, she takes a suitcase from his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

The midnight train takes them south, and before the sun is rising in the sky Berthold has found room for them at an inn and directions to the local magistrate’s office. It won’t be open for several hours, so they lounge in their room, trading slow, quiet kisses and wringing out the bedlam that’s been the last 48 hours. 

Ava describes what happened at the Grumman house: after her parents had retired for the evening, Ava began to pack. She’d slipped downstairs for just minutes to collect a few of her favorite books from her father’s collection in the parlor, which is when the lady’s maid found the opportunity to enter Ava’s room with the intent to turn down her bed for the evening. It was there that the lady’s maid found two half-packed suitcases on Ava’s bed, letters on her writing bureau, and her engagement ring sitting next to them. 

The evidence was damning enough to arouse suspicion. So the lady’s maid snatched one of the letters as fast as she could and alerted Ava’s parents to the rebellion occurring under their noses! Thus started the night’s more dramatic events, where Ava was berated by her family and told in no uncertain terms that running away and breaking her engagement was nothing short of duplicity, and she’d be a stranger to her family forevermore. 

Not to say she had a real choice in the matter. To assert her decision would mean to be locked away in the house forever. So Ava weathered the storm long enough to exhaust the household. Lulled into a false sense of resolution, she then made her escape.

Ava’s sacrifice is not lost on Berthold, and he thinks he might never get used to being in awe of her. She is charming and resourceful where he is gruff and impatient; an excellent example being the case of their marriage license, which the magistrate grants easily but informs them that their union isn’t official until a licensed individual can perform their civil ceremony. The county clerk has no appointments, but Ava is insistent that they marry that day. Her sunny disposition doesn’t sway the staff at the magistrate’s office, but it does convince a kindly priest to marry them on the spot. 

So they are Berthold and Ava Hawkeye. Berthold waits outside a phone booth for Ava to ring her family. It’s been such a long time since Berthold had anyone to check in with that he has difficulty fathoming Ava’s loyalty to people who bluntly communicated that she wouldn’t be part of the family anymore if she did what she did. Still, she insists it’s the right thing to do - the same logic that defended her decision to direct one of her goodbye letters to her former fiance. 

So while Berthold waits, Ava does the right thing. And when she emerges she is teary-eyed but smiling. 

“I told them we’re married, and that I’m safe and happy. And I won’t be coming home,” she says. Then, she shrugs. He’s sure the news wasn’t well received. 

“I’m sorry,” Berthold replies. He laces their fingers together and gives hers a reassuring squeeze.

“Don’t be,” she chides as they begin to walk. “I was willing to keep in touch; they weren’t. They can wallow in it for a while.”

* * *

Ava writes letters to her family throughout the first few years of their marriage that always go unanswered. They lead a semi-nomadic life, never staying still for more than a few months at a time. They travel in part because Ava loves it; it works in their favor that Berthold’s quest for knowledge takes them in every direction. 

Not every adventure yields fruit. Some towns are receptive and helpful; others are distrustful and closed-off. Berthold’s research sometimes reveals small treasures, or dead ends, and occasionally disaster. One particularly disturbing incident involved a pig farmer in the southwest, claiming to hold a foolproof way of protecting his research from those who might wish to steal it from him. 

Berthold was intrigued. His continued work in elemental alchemy, specifically the flame alchemy potential that Master Kuo had given up, made him worry about the ramifications of possessing such knowledge. But upon arrival, Berthold and Ava discovered that the crazed old alchemist had tattooed the entirety of his life’s work on the back of one of his pigs, so traumatized that it went squealing and rushing toward the back of the pig pen at the sight of human intruders. The farmer insisted with an unhinged look in his eye that whoever could catch the pig could have it all - and good luck to them in that area.

They left the farm speechless and disturbed. Berthold couldn’t imagine doing something so cruel to an innocent, helpless animal. Ava had gripped his hand and hissed, “I know you would never, but I have to say it...don’t you ever do something like that. No matter how desperate you feel.”

They spend time in between towns holding each other while they sleep under the stars. They outline constellations in the sky, and Berthold matches them with kisses on her skin. He can’t believe she’d really agree to this life, that she’s truly happy...but with the sun on her skin and flowers in her hair, tipping her face up to greet the morning breeze, Berthold sees what she doesn’t have to say: for all the ups and downs, she was meant for a life like this. 

Over time, though, they begin to crave roots, and they set their sights on Heidel. They had traveled through once before but hadn’t lingered long, though they’d both been in awe of the large white manor atop a winding hill. He believes it to be kismet when they see it listed for sale in the classifieds, just towns over. The picture is just how they remember it, and he arranges a wire transfer from his inheritance, laying dormant in a savings account in East City, to buy it as a surprise for his wife. He lives to make her smile, just as he did when he was a boy, and this surprise - along with the additional impulsive purchase of an automobile - is the best one yet.

Except that the manor’s interior, upon their arrival, is positively derelict. Half of it is uninhabitable, but Ava approaches it fearlessly, as she does with all things. 

“We can fix this,” she insists. “Come on. It’ll be an adventure.”

“It’ll take years,” Berthold says, deflated. This is what he gets for being rash. When Ava does it, she makes it look effortless.

“Well, we have years,” Ava reminds him. “And it’s ours, anyway. So let’s get to work.”

And with Ava’s indomitable spirit as his guiding light, together they make it a home. They make memories, happiness within its walls. They make it theirs. 

And soon enough, they make a baby, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooooo this was a one-shot that ran out of control, and there will be several more chapters until I've finished indulging myself. I'm super hooked on it.
> 
> Yes the chapter title is loosely inspired by WAP and no it doesn't have anything to do with the contents of this story. It's one of those dumb things that just begs to be known.
> 
> Up next: Berthold and Ava navigate parenthood // Young!Royai's humble roots


	2. You Knock Me Out, I Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Berthold and Ava navigate parenthood. A loss changes the family dynamic. Riza grows. Roy joins the fold.

“You know how every family has legends about their background? They insist they’re distantly related to a former Fuhrer, or their ancestor made the first Amestrian flag…” Ava reminisces. She takes a big bite of her apple turnover, the flaky whisps peppering her skirt. 

“On my mother’s side, they always proclaimed to be descendants from the second Drachman queen.” She waves her hand flippantly, sending crumbs flying. She swipes them off of the swell of her rather large belly. “Oh, bother.”

Berthold peers back at her with an amused smirk. The steam from the pot has fogged up his glasses, but he could be blind and picture her expression for how transparent she is in tone alone.

“How peculiar,” he comments. “What made you think of it?”

“Well, she had the most enchanting name. I’d never heard it before or since.”

“Do share, then,” he says. “Since we are running out of time.” He glances pointedly at her belly, nearly nine months grown.

As if on cue, Ava clutches her stomach where the baby has landed a rather powerful kick. 

“Urgh,” she moans. “What did I do to deserve that one?”

“Seems the little one is getting a bit cramped.” 

“That so?” she coos, rubbing her belly. “Trying to stretch your legs, eh, Riza?”

“The Drachman queen?”

“Ah--yes. I always thought it was pretty.”

He nods. The bone broth smells divine. “Quite unique, it is,” he agrees. 

Ava giggles; she licks a stray glob of fruit from her thumb. “Describing something as ‘unique’ or ‘interesting’ is just a kind way to mean ‘strange,’” she quips.

“Nonsense! I happen to think unique and interesting things are just that.”

“Well, perhaps it’ll interest you then,” she continues. “That ‘Riza’ was the nickname for her magnificently unique full name - Eziravete. Or, in modern Amestrian, Elizabeth.”

Berthold pauses in his stirring. “Elizabeth.” 

“Mmhmm.”

Something about it just sounds nice. Warm.

“Did your mother’s side come from Drachma, then?”

She nods. “That’s how our ancestors always told it. But before Drachma, I can’t say.” She eases herself up to waddle to the counter, where a takeaway box of more turnovers looks significantly less full than it had when Berthold had brought it home. “Your family always claimed Xerxes.”

“Yes,” he says. “But that was just a legend too, like your Queen Riza.”

“Your family lived in Briggs for a long time,” she muses. “Maybe even before then, they were Drachman, too.” Just then, a squirrelly smile crawls across her face, and Berthold knows she’s about to say something absurd. “Maybe we’re related.”

“My God, woman,” he chokes, nearly flinging his wooden spoon away. “Why would you say such a thing?!”

She laughs and laughs, the little pest. “To make you sputter like that. I’m only teasing darling, I don’t mean it.”

Berthold huffs, even as Ava’s hands pass soothingly over his shoulders as she ambles back to the table.

“That’s not funny at all! You’re carrying my child!”

“Well,” Ava concedes. “We’ll see if she comes out with an odd number of toes then, will we not?”

He shakes his head. “I’m going to have a heart attack. You’re trying to kill me, I’m sure of it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, my dear one. When is supper?”

“You’ve had your supper!” he remarks and jerks his head toward the table where her pastry sits half-eaten. “And dessert.”

“Oh, don’t punish me!” Ava pouts. “I’m creating life!”

“Hot dinners are for wives who don’t jest about inbred children.”

“Sorry, sorry. I take it all back. Just give me a big helping, please.”

* * *

What strange creatures babies are.

Berthold taps his chin as he studies this fascinating thing they’ve made. Just hours old, she is still red and very squishy, with eyes sealed shut and tiny heart-shaped lips that gap with each blessed breath she takes. She craves movement, he can tell, with arms and legs she can’t yet control, twitching and jerking every which way. 

How long has he been leaning over the cradle watching their little bird?

Ava’s weary chuckle jerks him out of his dream-like state. 

“She’s not going to disappear if you take your eyes off of her,” she rasps from the bed. 

Berthold looks up just briefly, unwilling to let her see his concern. Deep, dark circles cling to her eyes, her pallor a troubling grey. Her cropped flaxen hair is still damp and dark with sweat. She looks achingly exhausted despite the proud, contented smile, but he’s worried about how she hasn’t slept. Won’t even seem to consider it. 

He contemplates if it’s the same reason he stands sentry over their daughter. He can’t bear to look away from this wonder.

 _And,_ he thinks, _she_ might _disappear. How would we know? We’ve never done this before._

Labor was not kind to Ava. She was in agony for long, countless hours, the birth a gruesome ordeal that had both of them very scared. He vaguely remembered presiding with Master Kuo over the birth of his and Ying Yue’s youngest child many years ago, and it had been nothing like this. 

Their midwife was a godsend, encouraging yet firm, but she’d warned after it was all over - and their family doctor would later agree - that this child should be the only one she bore, lest she lose the battle during another birth. Berthold suspected that they’d come close to losing her today. He banished the thought from his mind before it had the chance to take root.

“What is on your mind, darling?” Ava asks. She uses her elbows to try to prop herself up as the little bird coos and chirps, drawing Berthold’s attention back in like she’s the sun and he’s the feeble planet caught in her orbit. He’s fixated now on the arch of her dainty nose, slightly curved on the end like his. Logic dictated she would inherit such qualities from him. But he hadn’t realized just how special it would feel to see those things in her. 

“It’s just all a bit surreal,” Berthold articulates as he reaches into the cradle to caress her silky soft cheek with the flat of his knuckle. “I didn’t know it’d feel like this.”

The little bird can feel him. She reaches up to grip his finger and holds it tight, and it makes Berthold chuckle. She is strong!

He counts out ten perfect little fingers and toes. She has airy wisps of blonde hair dusting her head, a curved point of a chin, and round, full cheeks. He can feel Ava’s eyes upon him, and he’s struck, consumed with a rush of a feeling he’d rarely known well enough to name - fear.

But the thing was, that fear had whispered to him secretly, soft, like a new friend, since Ava had started showing. He remembered the delicate swell of her stomach sticking out between the folds of her winter coat all those months ago, snowflakes dusting her eyelashes when she’d grabbed his hands and placed them where a flutter had begun to pulse. He wondered even then if his parents had felt this way about his upcoming arrival. He wondered about how his father felt when he looked down at him in his crib, held him for the first time. 

The fear is accompanied by something poignantly sad and sharp. If his father had felt the same pride, why had it faded the way it did? When did he become so cold and apathetic? It rolls through Berthold like a crashing wave, making him shiver.

“I’m...afraid,” he realizes. The revelation hurts, like an insidious wound he hadn’t known of till just now. “I must admit I feel somewhat unfit.”

Ava’s hum is comforting, but the burn still stings. 

“Nonsense,” she says. “You’re just right, darling. And just as well...there’s nothing wrong with being nervous.”

Berthold hesitates, grasping for the words. Ava coaxes him to come away from the cradle and sink on the edge of the bed while he considers it all. 

“My father,” he starts. “He and I...we didn’t connect. And, it wasn’t until he passed that I was able to appreciate him. Even now, though, there’s a lot I still don’t understand.”

Ava takes his hand, and he hopes that she can feel his anxiousness through the contact. He hopes she can understand. 

He is afraid of a future not unlike his past. He pictures their little bird growing up, not quite comfortable around him. He pictures her avoiding him as he did his father; trying to communicate, but struggling to get through. He pictures himself shut away in his drafty study, unable to connect with her. A distance so great that in the end, they aren’t much more than names nearby on the family tree.

“I don’t want it to be the way it was,” he vocalizes. He feels his face start to prickle as the sick crawls up his throat. His father’s indifference had hardened over in his heart like a bad seed. His inadequacy has followed him around for a long time. In his worst waking nightmares, it’s the thing that chokes his throat and makes his eyes smart: was he ever good enough?

Their little bird is more than enough. She’s done nothing more than exist and he is spilling over with something more than pride, more than love, whatever that may be. 

"Would it help if you held her for a little?" Ava encourages. She sees the strained look on his face and feels his uneasiness, palpable and heavy. "You can hardly bond if you're the one afraid of her."

Berthold’s head jerks up suddenly, his eyes drawn back to the cradle where their baby girl still chirps and coos.

"Oh,” he murmurs as if he hadn’t considered that option before. “Well, er, yes. I suppose I could do that."

Ava pats his hand. “Go on, then.”

He rises, his hands shaky. He cranes over the cradle and reaches in gingerly, nervously. She has weight to her, commands her space, but she is still so, so fragile.

"Come here, sweet one,” he whispers. “I've got you."

He settles her into the crook of his arms, her eyes cracking open more and more. He can see a hint of amber beneath her opening eyelids - another piece of him. He makes his way to Ava’s beside and settles in next to her again. Their little bird is staring up at him now, her fingers in her mouth. 

She’s remarkable.

Ava’s cool hand soothes his roiling thoughts. She traces the outline of his angular face, her palm coming to rest upon his cheek. 

“That you worry about this at all tells me you’re nothing like him,” she assures him. “You are her papa, and she needs you. I promise you, darling, this will be different.”

He nods as he leans into her. He’ll will it to be so. Things will be different. He’ll be different. 

For Elizabeth. 

* * *

She grows quickly, like a stubborn weed too impatient to wait. He’s awed by it. 

Berthold observes his daughter in the same way he studies alchemy; with paper and pen in hand. He documents everything she does, from her first smile, her first peel of laughter, the first time she rolls over, and the first time she crawls. He describes all her attempts with scientific neutrality, but his affection as he watches her practically oozes out of him. He is quite taken with her next impending first: taking her first steps, which come on the heels of her first fall and an early-season snowfall that traps them in the house.

She needs considerable help from Ava. She’s been dying to walk for weeks now, reaching up for helping hands any time one of them comes near her. She toddles with assistance from their sore backs and upended hands all over the first floor of the house. Then, while Berthold and Ava remark on the continuing snowfall, she stands. She takes a step. Then another. 

It’s only a matter of time until she is moving in earnest. Her bare feet slap against the hardwood floor as she stumbles, arms akimbo and squeals echoing through the house. She still clings to Ava’s skirts and Berthold’s trousers, but she is a stubborn one! And she is determined to go. And go she will. 

He has heard it said many times and ways, but he didn’t appreciate it until now, as she grabs the couch upholstery in his study for purchase, that his sweet Elizabeth is growing far too quickly. 

Her clumsy, unsure steps become confident, become faster, become quick pitter-patter through their happy little home. She isn’t quite running, but she is still very fast, and very curious about anything she can get her hands on. 

She is just over a year old when she falls in the kitchen, having stumbled over her own pudgy feet. Her startled wail is answered by Ava’s arms lifting her high into the air and onto her hip. She inspects her for any scuffs and bruises; though her pride seems a little hurt, she’s no worse for wear. 

“Now then, little bird, it’s alright. Mama’s got you,” Ava says, thumbing the crocodile tears from her cheeks. She sniffles and snuffles, her lower lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout.

Berthold’s head pops into the kitchen. 

“Is everything alright?” he asks. 

“Oh, yes,” says Ava. “Riza just had a bit of a tumble.”

But already, all seems forgotten as the next adventure becomes her priority. She squirms in her mother’s arms to be let down. When those feet hit the floors, she ambles awkwardly toward Berthold, and he holds out his hands for her to grab onto as she approaches.

“That’s a girl,” he murmurs. 

Her fearlessness becomes her. She unlatches from his fingers and takes off again, rushing past him and down the fall towards the foyer. He follows her closely, sure of where her little mind is coaxing her to go - the stairs, her current nemesis. On her hands and knees, she’s already carefully scaling the staircase one step at a time when he catches up to her, her diapered bottom facing out toward him. She doesn’t get far, however, because another stumble has her teetering on the edge, but Berthold is there - and snaps her up into his arms before she can fall. Her little squeak of fear is squelched with his arms around her.

“Elizabeth,” he says sternly, and her wide cognac eyes meet his, startled.

“What do we do when we fall?” he asks. She glances between him and the steps and hums nervously.

He sets her on the ground but crouches down to her eye level. She steadies herself with his hands again and eyes the stairs a bit more warily than she had before. Berthold lightly pinches her chin with his fingers. 

“When we fall, Elizabeth,” he says. “We get back up.”

And she takes a step.

* * *

Riza is so quiet that after a while Berthold forgets she is in the den at all. He promised Ava he’d watch her closely while she went running errands in town, but he has to admit, Riza doesn’t need much watching. She is five and wholly consumed with her own little world, babbling little made-up stories to herself on the floor of the den, doodling little pictures of stick figure families holding hands in front of a comically big house. 

Berthold takes a short break from his notebook for a spot of tea and returns with two cups and two saucers, one for each of them. Riza’s tea is not too strong, mostly water, but she is still in a mimicking phase where likes to do as her parents do, and they take tea often. 

“Posture,” says Berthold from his armchair. He straightens accordingly and lifts his teacup slowly with a pinky extended. Across the room, now seated on the couch with the saucer settled on her lap, Riza copies him exactly. They take a sip in tandem.

Riza is back to her drawings soon after, and Berthold takes a moment just to watch. Her circles are a little misshapen but decent for her age, and she’s meticulous and careful, not in a rush to produce something just because. He has a thought. 

“Riza, darling, would you like to draw something for me?”

Her little blonde head perks up and she nods enthusiastically. “Yes, Papa!”

He holds out his arms and Riza immediately springs from the floor and into his arms. He sweeps her onto his lap and rips a new, clean piece of parchment from his notebook. He directs her on what he wants, holding his notebook steady underneath her hand - a big circle, as perfect as she can make it. She tries several, and Berthold nods encouragingly, studying her creations with a trained and critical eye.

They continue for an hour more, and Berthold interjects her work with explanations on alchemy, illustrating his world as easily as he can manage for her sponge-like little mind. She listens patiently but he can tell she’s growing disinterested, especially when the front door’s open-shut sound heralds Ava’s return home. 

“Papa, I’m bored,” she says finally, after drawing her umpteenth circle. 

“That’s alright,” he says. “We can try again tomorrow if you like? Would you like to learn more about alchemy, Little Bird?”

“Yeah!” she chirps, climbing down from his lap.

“Okay,” Berthold says, his eyes shining with pride. “Okay.”

The next day after school, and for the next several weeks following, Riza settles into a routine of alchemy lessons with her father. She is receptive at first, but many concepts are still too abstract for her to grasp, and her face is blank when he summarizes what they’ve learned and begins quizzing her. He can see the light dimming in her eyes, her responses becoming more and more taciturn.

So Berthold thinks long and hard about how he can approach this. He hadn’t begun studying alchemy until he was a young man himself, already possessing a natural aptitude for the sciences. He backtracks his lessons to focus on the basic principles of the topic, hoping this will take hold and lay the groundwork. Still, Riza struggles to grasp these principles as well, and it isn’t long before their nightly lessons become shorter and her improvement virtually nonexistent. 

One evening, while he is mid-lesson, she begins to cry. 

“Papa, I don’t like alk-mee,” she wails into her hands. “I want to stop.”

“Oh!” Berthold drops the pen in his hand with a jolt of surprise. He flounders for a moment and looks helplessly toward Ava, who had been relaxing on the couch in the den this particular evening. He mouths ‘what do I do?!’ to her frantically, but she just gestures for him to comfort their daughter. Awkwardly, he pats her head, and her sniffles lessen a little. 

“Well, er, that’s alright, darling. We can stop for the night.”

“No,” she whimpers, her pudgy hands pushing away bulbous, wet tears. “I wanna be done forever. No more.”

It makes sense now, and he doesn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. Science and alchemy had always been his passion, and as Ava had warned him, he could sometimes be a bit narrow-minded concerning the paths of others. He had seen Riza drawing and made the connection to transmutation circles automatically, and his brain had taken him on a whirlwind journey imagining her following in his footsteps.

Now, seeing his little girl crying in frustration, he feels rather pathetic and small. He gathers her into his arms and pushes away their study materials. 

“Well, now -- this simply won’t do,” he says gruffly. He wipes her eyes with a handkerchief. She’s quieted now to the occasional hiccup, and he shifts her so that she is curled up against his chest while he strokes her short hair. “Alchemy sure is hard, isn’t it?”

She nods mutely, still rubbing at her eyes. 

“It’s hard for Papa, too. It took a long time for me to get good at it. But I always liked it a lot. And you don’t like it, do you?”

“No,” she moans. 

“You know, the world is full of lots of interesting things to learn that aren’t at all like alchemy. The best part is, you get to pick what you want to learn about.”

“B-but you like it,” she hiccups.

Berthold isn’t quite sure what to say to that, but yet again, he’s struck speechless by such a simple, unassuming thing. 

“I like other things,” he says softly. “There are lots of things we can do together, Little Bird.”

That gets her attention and she stills momentarily before asking cautiously, “Like what?”

Berthold reaches to the bookshelf and pulls down a worn album from one end, a thick and cumbersome thing that lands in his lap with a heavy flop. Riza watches quietly as he flips through the book, revealing page after page of delicately pressed flowers. 

“My mother taught me that all flowers have a meaning. She collected them and made notes on each one,” he says, tapping a page. “She died before you were born, but I think she would like it if we were able to do this together.”

The moment feels like it was meant to be. He gets a warm, happy feeling when Riza snuggles into his chest while he carefully turns another page. He wonders if quiet moments like this brought as much joy to his mother so many years ago when he was sitting on her lap as a boy, while they pressed flowers together into this very book.

Behind him, Ava approaches, and she giggles over his shoulder.

“Apple blossom!” she exclaims as he turns a page. She winds her arms across Berthold’s shoulder and settles her chin in the crook of his deck, looking down to her daughter. “Papa gave me one just like it once, Elizabeth. Can you read Mama the meaning, please?”

Riza scoots forward and places one pudgy finger under the delicate writing, sounding out the syllables.

“Apple blossom,” she mumbles. “I pref...pref--”

“Prefer,” Berthold whispers in her ear.

“Prefer...you...before...all.”

Ava’s delighted laughter in his ear is prettier than music. 

“I never knew,” she says.

Berthold shrugs. “I always did.”

* * *

The truth is, Berthold didn’t want to make amends with Geralt Grumman. In fact, he didn’t care if he never saw or heard from the old coot ever again. And he’s sure the feeling is mutual.

He doesn’t have to, so he won’t. But he will not keep Ava from her family, and if the steady course of letters arriving at the house is any indication, it seems as though she is slowly getting back on good terms with her family. What was once a monthly letter or payphone call are now weekly at least, with increasing and irregular frequency in the years since Riza’s birth.

Still, the Grummans have never met their granddaughter. Ava up and changes this one cool fall day.

“You don’t have to go along,” says Ava. “Though I wish you would. But we’re staying for a week.”

“Take the car,” says Berthold. “The train is crawling with germs. It’s a breeding ground for sickness.”

Indeed it is. Influenza season has begun in earnest. This year’s strain is particularly potent and powerful. Ava was never the same after giving birth to Riza all those years ago, her health constantly compromised. It was rare for her to now spend much time around people once the risky months hit, which told him that this trip must be immensely important to her. 

So Ava packs a bag for her and Riza to share and takes the family car. Riza is excited but apprehensive, and whines from the backseat when Berthold leans in the window to kiss her cheek. 

“I’ll visit the payphone tonight,” he promises. “And I’ll miss you every minute.”

He keeps his promise and keeps calling each day until they come home. He’s delighted to hear that the visit so far has been a success. Riza instantly loves her grandparents, plus the aunt and uncle and cousins that she’d never known. When they return home the following week as planned, she is abuzz with stories. Berthold knows this means more trips in the future, but he doesn’t mind. This was the right move, he thinks. It should have happened long ago. He chastises himself for not being more forward, more vocal. Regardless of his sour feelings toward Geralt Grumman. 

Still, something isn’t quite right. Berthold notices Ava’s grey, hollowed expression the instant she pulls into the driveway. The sweat collecting on the crown of her head doesn’t make sense with the chill of the fall air, her breathing winded and short as she carries their luggage into the house. Her youthful vigor is replaced with a concerning sluggishness, and he ushers her to bed as soon as he can. 

A week passes, and she is worsening with a fever, chills, and a sickening, watery cough. 

A month, and she is bedridden, quarantined in an empty room away from them. 

Two months and the family doctor’s visits yield no improvement and even less hope.

Five months later, 36-year-old Ava Hawkeye doesn’t wake up.

* * *

_A dismal day for the Hawkeye family indeed! The town is trembling from the arrival of the plague, so contagious and fatal that our townspeople have all but shut themselves away in their homes! What luck that the Hawkeyes have the benefit of solitude to protect them, or so we thought until the plague breached the walls of their impregnable fortress and stole the life of Master Hawkeye’s lady wife. If even they are not safe, what hope do the rest of us have?_

_And then there is the question of these newcomers that Master Hawkeye has been entertaining! No doubt the family of the missus, yet how curious that they’d never been sighted visiting their daughter and granddaughter in the last decade. But look - their automobiles had arrived at the manor just days before Lady Hawkeye’s untimely passing._

_Town gossips need only wait patiently for scandal, and they receive their just desserts in due time. For no more than minutes have passed after the conclusion of Lady Hawkeye’s funeral that Master Hawkeye and his stately father-in-law erupted into a positively raucous shouting match! If their tasteless outbursts can be believed at face-value, Lady Hawkeye’s father had been estranged from his daughter for many years all in part to Master Hawkeye. Sources confirmed Lady Hawkeye had been previously engaged until Master Hawkeye had returned from abroad and snatched her from under the nose of her betrothed!_

_“Scoundrel!” condemn some. “Romantic!” others insist. What town chatter agrees on, however, is the unfairness of it all for young Elizabeth, just eight and motherless and positively distraught, clinging to her grandmother throughout the funeral. What good is the notion of community if it won't come together to raise up one of their own in their time of need? It takes a village, after all!_

* * *

Berthold finally gets Riza to bed after a long and trying day with significant help from Claudette. He is relieved at how fond his daughter seems of her grandparents, but part of their fast bond only enhances his guilt. Despite how angry he’d been during his argument with Geralt, he admits it - he’s stubbornly kept Ava - and Riza - from their family for a long time, the best years of her life. The regret is as stifling as it is lonely in his cold, empty home. 

When Ava was sick, they had moved her to her own room to avoid a possible contagion in the home at the advice of their family doctor. It’d been months since Berthold had shared his bed with his wife, months since Riza had been able to see her mother without winding a scarf around her face. Toward the end, they’d all been warned against getting too close, and they’d been forced to stand and interact with her at a distance, for short periods. Berthold couldn’t think of it without choking on tears; the memory of Riza’s broken little face haunted him, her arms outstretched, desperate for a hug from her beloved mother.

He’d missed her even then when she was a distance away but still alive; it was unbearable now. 

Ava’s memory lingers in every room in the house. His study, a room least frequented by her in life, is still littered with fragments of her, of memories of her lounging on the sofa with Riza while Berthold toiled away long into the night. He sits there now, his mind silent and lethargic over his notebook when his father-in-law invites himself in. 

Berthold is instantly on guard, his hackles prepared to raise. He’d been afraid of this, a sudden reappearance simply a means to reprise their volatile screaming match. 

But to his immense surprise, Geralt Grumman is here to apologize.

Head bowed, he drifts through the shadows toward Berthold, his eyes red and bloodshot. Berthold’s spent much energy disliking him that he had forgotten that their loss is shared. He sees the schisms in Geralt Grumman’s once indomitable face and at once can’t bear to consider his agony. If he lost Riza like this, he doesn’t think he’d ever recover. Even the thought of it makes his throat swell. 

Geralt coughs into his fist and takes a breath. 

“I have spent a long time letting my anger at you fester.” He eases himself onto the sofa, his wrinkled hands folded and eyes downcast. 

“I didn’t think...I wouldn’t let myself accept that you were her path. I always viewed you as someone who stole her away. Took her future away.” He chuckles humorlessly. “After getting to know young Elizabeth, I’m not so convinced I was right after all.”

Berthold doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. Doesn’t jab. Doesn’t correct. He listens.

“I see now,” he continues. “That you gave Ava a beautiful life. Certainly, the one she wanted.” His eyes crinkle fondly. “She wasn’t meant to live a caged life. Not my wild girl. With you, I think, she was free, and I thank you for that. I just wish that I had been able to be part of it.”

Berthold’s mouth is so dry that he doesn’t think he’d be able to make a sound if he wanted to. The old Brigadier General wipes at his eyes, his voice wobbling. 

“I want to apologize for the things I said to you after the funeral; it was unfair and wrong, and I let my grief spiral. I let my anger lash out at you, and in a most appropriate setting.” He clears his throat, grasping for composure. “And even though I don’t deserve it, I wanted to see - I wanted to offer -” He hiccups weakly. “I wanted to see if you’d allow Elizabeth to visit with Claudette and me in the summers when school is out. We’d be honored to know her. She is such a sweet little girl, and so much like Ava at that age.”

If Berthold’s jaw could have unhinged itself and fallen to the floor, it would have about five confessions ago. He clears his throat a few times and finally can croak out an answer. 

“I’m-I’m quite sure that can be arranged.” He nods weakly and offers a pinched smile. A peace offering. Forgiveness. 

Geralt looks so elated he thinks he might jump up and hug him. Instead, with a worn expression, he nods vigorously. “Good, then. Very good.”

The men sit in silence then, for a long while. The odd truce they’ve reached creates a strangely weightless feeling. But as soon as it settles, it passes. Grumman slaps his knees and goes to stand. 

“Oh! One more thing,” he says, and Berthold braces himself for something out of left-field, like a confession that the Loch Ness Monster lives in the Grumman’s koi pond. 

“I have a friend in Central City with an inquiry I want to pass on to you. She runs an, erm, _establishment_ I’ve come to frequent over the years, and she has a young nephew living with her who’s taken a shine to alchemy.” 

Berthold’s eyebrows perk with interest as Grumman continues. “He’s very bright, and she's looking to set up an apprenticeship for him for when he's a little older. Any chance you’d be interested in taking on a pupil?”

It's tempting. Grumman promises his friend is good for the compensation while pointedly avoiding mentioning the more derelict features of the manor, though the hint hangs in the air anyway. They could use the income that an alchemy student would bring. 

He promises Grumman that he’ll think about it, and Berthold goes to bed in a daze that night, ideas and plans swirling in his mind, fighting for attention. He stares at the ceiling for a long time. 

“What do you think, Ava?” he says aloud. “You know how I’d like to share my work. I just don’t want Riza to feel...”

He sighs heavily. He and Riza have never revisited her distaste for alchemy, and he didn’t plan to. He never wanted to make her feel inadequate. Like he was disappointed in her. It was impossible to be disappointed in her. But he worries that taking on an apprentice might scratch at those feelings. But a calm passes over him then, and he thinks he knows what that means.

“Alright,” he concedes. “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

Monday morning is cold and quiet. And heavy, Berthold thinks, shivering underneath the covers. He shifts to pull his quilt up to his chin. The floorboards wince, and he gets a shaky feeling. It feels like something is watching him; she resists the urge to pull his quilt over his head and hide.

When he opens his eyes, a pair of matching amber orbs stare back at him. 

“Papa!”

“Erm...Riza?”

She pokes him in the forehead. “Papa, it’s Monday. I’m gonna be late for school.”

“Huh?”

His sight clears and thoughts connect, the haze of sleep disappearing too slowly to keep up with Riza’s chatter. 

“I gotta go to school,” she insists, shoving at his arm. 

She huffs impatiently, and Berthold fumbles for his glasses. Now he can see her clearly: dressed for school in a clean dress, stockings, a thick wool coat and good shoes, her favorite headband, and her knapsack. They stare at each other wordlessly until it dawns on him. 

“Mama used to walk with you, didn’t she?”

Used to. The answer is loud and clear with the downward shift of her eyes, now focused on the shiny buckle of her shoe. A sour taste fills his mouth, and right then and there he makes a decision that may very well have precarious repercussions for his carefully curated reputation. Berthold throws his blankets off and pops out of bed, making her jump, and declares, to hell with reputation.

“Right, then!” he booms. “Can’t very well escort you in my nightclothes, can I? I demand privacy! Begone, Little Bird! Shoo!”

Riza giggles and flies from the room and he meets her by the front door dressed in clean slacks, a crisp white shirt, and his thick winter coat. His long hair is tied back in a red bow and a stiff bowler hat atop his head.

“Lead the way!” he cries, offering her his arm. Riza’s giggle makes his smile widen, and her tiny hand reaches up to grasp his elbow. 

It doesn’t take Berthold long to realize that Riza is perfectly capable of walking herself to school. She’s cheerfully received by her peers and her teachers in the schoolyard, while he is curiously regarded by the other children and their parents. He decides he doesn’t mind as much as he thought. He’ll walk her to school again tomorrow.

* * *

One night while Berthold is preparing dinner for the two of them, Riza looks up from her schoolwork and fixes him with a hard look. 

“Papa,” she says. “How do you spell ‘exuberant’?”

He thinks for a moment and spells it out loud for her, letter by letter. The sound of her pencil scratching energetically against her parchment is loud in the otherwise quiet kitchen.

“Are you working on vocabulary tonight, dear?” he asks. 

“I just finished,” she says. “Now I’m writing grandma and grandpa.”

“Ah. That’s quite a big word for a letter.”

“Grandpa likes the big words.”

“Do you like writing to them?”

“Yes. But the post takes too long. I wish I could talk to them more.”

He sighs deeply because he knows exactly what would help the situation. He’d successfully avoided the unnecessary trappings of modern life to exist simply, without fuss. It’d been nice, reminiscent of his travels. But he’s not traveling anymore. He’s a father.

He insisted he’d never buy a telephone. He’d never own a contraption so tethered to “out there.” But as he watches Riza feverishly write her letters week after week, checking the post obsessively after school every day, he knows this is bigger than him. He may not need those connections, but Riza is a little girl who is still growing and doesn’t have a mother to guide her through life. 

So Berthold goes out and buys a telephone. He installs it in the foyer by the stairs, where a telephone line from the former owners is still connected by the baseboard. It’s got an awful, screeching ring to it. It’s gaudy as all hell. 

But it’s worth it. It’s so worth it. He surprises her after school, pulling a kitchen chair next to it for her to sit on while he dials the Grumman’s phone number. She watches him curiously, and as he greets her grandmother, he swears he can feel her smile lighting up the entire house. He hands her the receiver and she presses it to her ear, giggling and chattering over the line with Claudette. She’d sit there all night if he let her.

It was worth the concession, he thinks. I’m sorry, Ava. I should have done this a long time ago.

Riza hasn’t smiled this much in a long, long time.

* * *

The years fly by so fast it feels like cheating. He’s walked her to school hundreds upon hundreds of times since that first day back to school after her mother died, and each time becomes a little easier, her head held a little higher. 

The other adults - and many of the children - have their own opinions of Berthold, undoubtedly the result of his personally-curated rumors, and then having heard of his annoyingly public feud with his father-in-law.

The younger children are bold, as he finds out. Not at all afraid of the whispers that paint him as a brute, a monster. One particular little boy, who is a few years younger than Riza, regards him with a hard stare every time he walks her to school, clinging to the fence from the inside. Usually, he just watches. Today, he speaks. 

“You ain’t a vampire,” the little boy observes.

Riza sniffs, nose turned up as she adjusts her knapsack. “Told you. He’s just a Papa.”

“He don’t look like my Papa.”

“All papas look different, Elliot,” she huffs. Berthold lets go of her hand and switches her lunch pail into her palm. She crosses into the schoolyard and waves goodbye at him over her shoulder. He waves back and turns to head home. 

Elliot walks along the fence parallel to him. He has a little felt cap pulled tight on his head and stuffs his hands into his pockets. He looks like a little steelworker stomping off to work. And now that Berthold thinks of it, he might even be able to picture the boy’s grandfather, who he passes in town sometimes and wears the same contemplative expression.

“Are you nice?” Elliot asks suddenly.

“Nope,” says Berthold. 

“Yes, you are.”

“Okay.”

The fence ends in a sharp corner, and Berthold turns to face the boy, who is standing there grasping the chain links.

“Wanna hear what my Mama said about you?”

“No.”

“She says you’ve got a big heart. Does that hurt?”

Berthold fidgets. “Sometimes.”

“My nana died of that, so watch out.”

That seems to be all that Elliot has on his mind because he kicks at the fence and turns on his heel to amble back from whence he came. Berthold just shakes his head and continues with his morning. He doesn’t quite know what to make of any of that. Are all kids that...whatever that was?

As it turns out, they are, and it continues. Odd little interactions with the children that he doesn’t at all initiate, and some conversations with the parents, that gradually unravel all his hard work. 

He wouldn’t say he has “friends” per se, but he’s not reviled. This means soon he’ll lose his privacy too. He can’t believe after all this time, he’s buying into being...neighborly.

But in the blink of an eye, Riza is eleven, and it is the first day back to school after summer break. He’s gotten up early to fix a light breakfast for the both of them and coffee for himself, which he lets her take little sips of each time she asks, even though her nose crinkles in disgust every time. 

“Ready to go?”

He sets the dishes in the sink, and Riza goes to fetch her knapsack. When she returns, she is staring pointedly at the ground, rolling the toe of her shoe into the floor. 

“Um,” she says. “Actually, Papa, you don’t have to walk me to school. I’m gonna walk with the Deanses, if that’s okay.”

Berthold feels like he’s been slapped in the face, punched in the gut, and kicked between the legs all at once. 

“Mrs. Deans is letting Alice and Julie walk by themselves now since they’re eleven,” she explains hastily. “And they said I could walk with them, too. So we’re gonna meet at the end of the lane.”

“Well - that’s all just fine,” Berthold groans through his choked windpipe. “Make sure you girls stay together then, okay?”

“‘Kay,” she says with a small smile. “See you.”

“Bye, darling,” he says with a forced smile. “Learn lots.”

When the door has snapped shut, Berthold sinks into his chair at the kitchen table. He folds his hands and sits there for a long time.

It was inevitable. But damn, if it didn't hurt.

* * *

One Saturday, Mrs. Deans collects Riza in the morning and takes her shopping with her daughters for new school clothes. She returns with a few new dresses and slacks, good leather for winter shoes, new wool gloves, a new lined journal and a small, white thing with stretchy straps and two cups, and a wide band that Riza is too embarrassed to let her father see. Mrs. Deans returns the cenz that Berthold had given her and tells him not to mind, that Riza is such a pleasure that she’ll take her shopping any time. And besides, she owes him as much for raising the only person she’d trust her girls walking to school with. 

One Monday, Mrs. Boerckel sends Riza home from school with a heavy sack of potatoes, a jar of homemade balm for their cracked winter skin, and a pillowcase full of goose feathers. She describes the down feather blankets that they use to keep their family warm in the winter and Berthold transmutes the gift to fit one blanket for each of their beds. He writes a thank-you note for Riza to give her the next day.

One Wednesday, snow starts to fall that morning in fat, round flakes that coat the dirt road startlingly fast. Later, Mr. Schaffer sees Berthold standing at the bottom of his long, hilly lane grimacing at the thick, packed snow like it has personally insulted him. He has two heavy-looking paper bags in his arms, so he offers him a lift up to the house. He follows Berthold inside with an armful of clean bricks from the back of his truck that he recommends warming over the fire before bed and sticking under their mattresses for extra heat. In exchange, Berthold transmutes some scrap metal into a new door handle to replace the busted one on his driver's side.

One Friday, Mrs. Fern and Mrs. Ziegler send the boys outside for an early recess and pull all the girls into a big circle. They’re at the age where their bodies are starting to change, so they explain monthly cycles and pain management, and ways to keep their clothes clean. They tell the girls not to feel scared, that it’s a natural part of womanhood, and to come to fetch them if they need help.

Riza lingers after the girls are dismissed and bashfully shares that she’d started bleeding the previous month. She was too mortified to go to her father and didn’t know what to do, and instead bore it in uncomfortable silence with lumps of gauze and dark clothing. Mrs. Ziegler drops by the house early the next day while Riza is sweeping snow from the porch, with a bag of essentials under her arm, plus instructions on where to get new supplies and how to use them. She’s shocked and warmed when Riza spontaneously drops her broom and embraces her around the waist.

During Berthold’s regular trips to town, people stop him to ask about Riza. Every inquiry is kind and genuine, completely devoid of the nosy curiosity he’d come to anticipate. He answers honestly and thanks them for their asking, and they always say - with the seriousness of someone who expects the same from him - to please contact them if he and Riza need anything. 

It leaves a strange feeling in Berthold’s gut. He is her father, and he can take care of her. But there’s a lot he doesn’t know, a lot that Ava was going to teach her. Things about being a woman that he can’t begin to understand.

He’s thankful, he begrudgingly realizes, for this nosy town. 

And Riza -- Riza will be okay.

* * *

Berthold has forgotten how stifling Central City is, especially during the unrelenting summer months. The university’s lecture hall is blessedly outfitted with this marvelous ventilation system that pumps cool air throughout the auditorium. Stepping from that chilled paradise onto the humid streets below is cause for sweat to immediately percolate on his forehead; he stifles a whine as he loosens his tie.

He is nearing the end of a summer lecture circuit all across Amestris. With a modestly successful alchemical book under his belt and several guest appearances at universities, Berthold thinks he might have a knack for this teaching thing. 

Not for the first time, he’s grateful for Riza’s fondness for summers at her grandparents’ home. She would hate this, he thinks. The road is boring - even for someone as quiet and studious as his daughter. He knows she’d much rather be shooting clay pigeons with her grandfather or running amuck with her cousins, or sitting in the parlor with her nose stuck in a book. 

Berthold checks the address in his journal for the umpteenth time as he reaches a street with an obvious dead end, the only building of note being a decrepit-looking bar. No, that’s not quite it. A hostess bar. And he nearly curses Geralt Grumman. The man has set him up as a practical joke.

He’s about to stomp off when a side door to the bar in the adjacent alley whips open and a young woman steps out with a cigarette between her fingers. She eyes him disinterestedly as she takes a puff, while Berthold makes a point to look away.

“You lookin’ for Madam Christmas?” she hollers to him. Grimacing, he turns to her. 

“Christine Mustang,” he clarifies.

“That’s ‘er,” she says. “Go on in. She’s waiting for ya at the bar.”

My God, Berthold thinks and forges ahead. What on Earth is happening?

He shuffles inside, feeling apprehensive and awkward. Sure enough, Ms. Mustang - Madam, he reminds himself - is hovering at the bar puffing o-shaped smoke from her long cigarette holder. She is an imposing mountain of a woman with long, plaited black hair, garish makeup, and a beauty mark below her chin. And she looks at him with a stern expression that immediately makes him straighten up and take his hat off. This lady means business.

“Berthold Hawkeye,” she calls aloud in a deep, booming voice. He restrains the urge to shush her, even though the bar is empty this time of day. What if someone heard overheard? He could see it now - Alchemy master Berthold Hawkeye caught philandering in a hostess bar. And eventually, General Grumman found dead.

“Relax,” she says with a low chuckle. “I ain’t gonna bite, and neither are the girls.”

She motions for him to join her; he gulps as he slides onto the barstool. He makes a point not to look around, worried to accidentally make eye contact with one of the many women sauntering about. The Madam slides behind the bar, the cigarette smoke between them a curious haze. She produces a tumbler from the depths of the bar shelf. 

“Whiskey?” she offers. He nods blankly and accepts the glass. He takes a sip. It’s smooth. Good.

“Suppose you have some questions,” she says, eyeing him through narrowed slits.

“A few.”

She answers with a chuckle. It’s warm and non-threatening, and he’s surprised to find that the sound relaxes him. That and the whiskey have him loosening up just a bit. 

“Well, I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “And there really is a young man living here who’d be delighted to be your student. But first, I think I’d better set the record straight.”

She wipes a matching tumbler with a damp rag and pours herself a finger of whiskey. She knocks it back in one gulp, then slaps it down onto the bar. 

“If old Grumman trusts you enough to send you here personally with my given name, it means he trusts you,” she continues. She props her chin on her hand, observing him with meticulous, all-seeing eyes. “Now, I can see your reaction plain as day, and you’d better understand that the girls working here are honest, hard-working young women who deserve your respect. So wipe that constipated look off your face. They won’t bother you if you don’t want them to.”

Berthold straightens instantly and swallows hard. 

“Furthermore,” she continues. “This isn’t just any hostess bar. We trade in information here. Expensive information. Make sense?”

Well, if it all didn’t make a lot more sense. No wonder Geralt Grumman would want to do favors for someone as well-connected as Madam Christmas. Berthold nods slowly and begins to imagine the sorts of things that that wily old man is privy to. Valuable secrets for sure, no doubt about his peers. 

“Roy’s grown up here,” she adds. “His parents passed when he was a babe and he’s been with me ever since. He’s a good kid. Smart as a whip, and driven. And the girls dote on him, of course.” She produces a fan from her coat sleeve and begins to wave it in front of her face. “Now, he’s upstairs, and he doesn’t know you’re here. If what you’ve learned here today has affected your decision to take him on a student, say it now - and Roy will be none-the-wiser when you leave.”

Or else, he hears dangling in the air. He downs his whiskey and brings the empty tumbler down on the bartop with a loud thunk. 

“I’ll need to see the boy’s work first,” he says. “An...audition of sorts. Also - how old is he?”

“Thirteen,” she says.

“I don’t take apprentices younger than fifteen.”

“I thought private tutors took students as young as eleven.”

“Some do. I don’t.”

If the boy was as good as he was led to believe, he’d have no trouble finding an alchemy master who would take him on now. That he wasn’t already spoken for told Berthold that Madam Christmas had held out for the best for her beloved nephew. 

The Madam went to fetch Roy while Berthold waited, and soon a pair of long legs, not unlike a new colt, came traipsing down the stairs. The boy was gangly and clumsy with a mop of messy hair and narrowed black eyes that reminded Berthold instantly of his Xingese master’s teenage son from all those years ago. The boy blanched white as snow when he laid eyes on Berthold’s slouching frame, stilling so suddenly that the Madam had to clap him on the back to snap him out of it.

“Roy-Boy,” she says. “I have someone I’d like you to meet. This is--”

“Master Berthold Hawkeye,” he interrupts shakily, extending his sweaty palm for a handshake. His wide eyes are full of that delightful mix of panic and excitement. “It’s a pleasure to meet you sure. I’ve read your book.”

Berthold grins and shakes the boy’s hand, his grip tights and strong. Roy’s eyes are shining, and he feels a deep sense of satisfaction deep in his heart that coming here was the right decision. He pictures Ava’s approving smile.

“Is that so?” says Berthold. “What did you think of it?”

They spend an hour discussing alchemical theory so thoroughly that Berthold decides then and there that he’d take him on as a student regardless of his further work. Even the best alchemists struggled with theory, where Roy already shined, and Berthold was confident that any errors in his work could be easily corrected with practice. The young man was so excited to show him his writings and theory work that Berthold found himself conducting a mini-lesson right there in the bar that ran so long that neither of them seemed to notice the bar’s activity begin to pick up. 

It felt good to talk with a fellow alchemist. Berthold had been such a lone wolf for most of his academic life that he’d forgotten how useful and invigorating fellowship could be. At the end of the night, Berthold seals their agreement with a handshake. In two years, Roy Mustang would join his new master in Heidel.

When Berthold returns to his hotel, he opens his notebook to a page illustrating a complex flame-based array he’d been tinkering with for the better part of a year. He’d started and stopped so many times he’d been resigned to its end. But as he studies it again, things begin to take shape in his mind’s eye. With a mind flushed with new ideas, he hunkers down and gets to work.

* * *

Berthold can count on one hand how many times he’s driven the car since Ava died. It sits under a sheet in their garage, cold and stale and probably growing rust and spoiling its insides by the day. He questions often why they even bought the damn thing, or why he doesn’t just give in and sell it, with how frequently they walk to everything. The town’s not that big, and the fresh air is nice.

The answer is more obvious when he uncovers the car one day. Pieces of Ava are still there, from the smudge marks from her fingertips on the steering wheel to a pack of her chewing gum in the glovebox. Strands of fine blonde cling to the driver’s seat. This was her car.

Next to him, Riza fidgets. “Can I drive it?” she asks. They stand in front of it, staring blankly, unsure of what to do next.

Berthold glances down at her thoughtfully. She’s twelve now, which seems old enough to him. He’s seen children younger than her handling farm vehicles.

“I don’t see why not,” he says. “Hop in.”

Like everything she does, Riza is a natural. She follows Berthold’s directions, exactly precise, and soon they are puttering down the lane and taking a short drive to an empty field. What a strange thing to be able to do for her, he thinks. But it’s simple, and it makes her smile. She leans one arm over the side of the car and lets the wind pass through her fingertips. The sun warms her cheeks, and she breathes in the fresh country air. 

Ava’s spirit lives on in their daughter. 

* * *

Roy is brought into the fold the following spring, delivered to the Hawkeye’s doorstep by his formidable aunt. He is young, bright-eyed, and eager. He carries just two suitcases - one for clothes and the other for books.

Riza was receptive to Berthold taking on a pupil, to his unending relief. She had grown up hearing fond stories of her father’s beloved Master Kuo; it made sense to her that one day her Master father would be in high demand from other budding alchemists. She knew that he had some name recognition beyond Heidel; his book for beginners had done well enough to sustain them financially, and she knew too that his summer guest lectures were well-attended.

Berthold was thankful that Riza had been such a big help getting things ready for Roy. She had cleaned and prepared his guest room, and even wrote to him on Berthold’s behalf beforehand to make sure she had some of his favorite foods in the house when he arrived to make him feel more welcome. Berthold wouldn't have thought to do that.

She was so thoughtful and smart in her letters that upon meeting her, Roy was surprised to find that it wasn’t a grown lady he had been conversing with, but his new master’s teenage daughter. He could tell already that she was full of surprises. He’d never known a girl with hair as short as his, but it suits her perfectly. It’s becoming and sweet. With her blond hair and shy smile, she reminds him of something out of a Grimm fairy tale. 

He gives Aunt Chris a big hug before she leaves. She pinches his cheek fondly and reminds him to study hard and not make too much trouble for the Hawkeyes. But there’s a glint in her eye that tells him she wants to say something to him in private, so he offers her his arm and walks her to the foot of the lane where a car is waiting for her. 

“Now, remember, Roy,” she says in a low voice, the voice she uses right before she gives him a tongue lashing. “You’re here to study. Not chase girls.”

Roy nods obediently, but in the back of his mind, he scoffs. What’s wrong with doing both? Alchemy won’t take up all his time. 

“You’d do well not to make an enemy of your master so early,” she continues. “And that means staying clear of Miss Elizabeth. You don’t make any trouble for her either. You understand?”

“I barely know her,” Roy croaks; he knows what she's getting at. Aunt Chris straightens and adjusts her coat. 

“Not yet,” she warns. “Proximity is a damn thing. So you watch yourself, and be respectful.”

And to that point, Roy thinks he’s been doing a good job. He regards Miss Elizabeth (“It’s Riza, please.”) with thank-yous and yes-ma’ams and if-you-pleases, and overall just does his best to stay out of her way. She clearly knows what she’s doing, the little lady of the house, and needs him for little more than reaching things on a high shelf. 

His studies have been going well so far, too. Master Hawkeye is an interesting, dynamic teacher who doesn’t talk down to him but doesn’t allow him to slack off when he knows Roy can do better, either. Roy appreciates the discipline, even if it makes his teenage brain grumble from time to time.

Roy is used to being doted upon. His sisters made a point of lavishing him with compliments and cuddles since he was a little boy, and his self-confidence had earned him a small gaggle of adoring little girlfriends back in Central. Even here in Heidel, as he accompanies Master Hawkeye into town, he’s earned a growing reputation amongst the young ladies as the handsome, mysterious newcomer. All he has to do is flash them a friendly smile when they pass one another in the street or a shop, and their giggling and chatter follows him all the way home.

Miss Elizabeth - Riza - doesn’t buy it. She is so unimpressed by his supposed popularity among her peers that it actually hurts his feelings a little bit. He doesn’t know why, but he wants her, of all people - his housemate - to like him. He’d been hoping they could be friends, but her ambivalence is withering. 

Sure, he tries to win her over, with those same kind smiles and friendly hello’s. He makes a point to be around her more and demonstrate his inherent goodness by helping out around the house. He washes dishes, collects laundry off the line. He even wakes up dreadfully early to chop firewood so she doesn’t have to, leaving it in a pile next to the back door where he knows she’ll see it. 

She offers her gratitude - but that’s it! Not even a blush or a giggle or a hint of a changed heart. It drives him crazy.

So he tries other things - sharing funny anecdotes about the townspeople, bringing home little trinkets for her, reciting sweet pieces of poetry to her that he’d thought she’d like. Nothing. He asks her about what she likes to do and takes a keen interest in her hobbies, even offering to go hunting with her some weekend. Nothing!

So he pulls out the big stop. After more than a year of living with them, it seems fitting. 

Following a long morning of chopping wood, he hurries to his room to fetch the single red rose he’d purchased for her from the town florist the day before. He’d set it by his window in a glass of cold water hoping it wouldn’t wilt overnight. Rushing down the stairs, he drops the rose on top of the woodpile and silently slips back inside. He can hear Riza coming down the stairs, so with a jump, he bolts into the coat closet by the stairs and hides from her.

He knows she’s opened the back door. She pauses. And he waits for that satisfying gasp - a squeak - a breathy “Oh, Roy!” to know he’s got her. And then he’ll reveal himself to her, a knowing smirk on his lips, and tell her, “Well, Riza, I just thought you should know - I think you’re amazing.”

And he does. He’s been in awe of her since the day they met.

But to his heart’s sinking disappointment, there’s no sign that she’s remotely affected by his gesture. He can see through the kitchen window that she’s breezed right past his neat stack of firewood and is headed toward the forest with her rifle slung over her shoulder.

Nothing.

He trudges up the stairs to his bedroom and flops onto his bed face first, defeated. The girl is impossible. He lays there for another hour, misses breakfast, and waits for the telltale slam of the door to signify that Riza has left for school before he finally gets up. When he arrives in Berthold’s study for the day, his master launches right into their lesson. If he notices Roy wallowing he doesn’t mention it. 

A change, however, happens later that night when they break to wash up for dinner. Riza had been cooking up a storm since she came home from school and what they’re greeted with after making themselves presentable following a long day of learning is a delicious, mouth-watering spread on their little kitchen table: juicy venison wellington, perfectly crisp on the outside and slightly pink on the inside. Thick, hearty baked potatoes topped with a melting dollop of butter, sour cream, and gooey cheese. Bright zucchini and butternut squash and carrots from their garden. 

“What’s all this?” Berthold asks with uncontained surprise. Riza wipes her hands on a tea towel and just shrugs, a little smile crossing her lips. 

“Just because,” she says. “You’ve been working hard.”

Berthold and Roy sit down to fill their plates while Riza passes them both a set of silverware and a cloth napkin. When Roy unfurls his napkin, he’s surprised to see a little daisy-like sprig fall from the folds and onto his lap. He holds it up curiously, examining it closely. 

“Is that candytuft?” Berthold asks. 

Roy looks up, not sure how to answer. Luckily, Riza does for him.

“Oh!” she exclaims. “Yes, that is candytuft. It must have gotten stuck in my skirts while I was pulling weeds. Sorry, Roy.”

“S’okay,” he mumbles, unsure what this all means. That seems like too strange a story to be true, but he can’t see her picking flowers for him. 

But what he can’t explain away is the delicious sensation of Riza’s hands sliding across his shoulders as she moves past him to her seat at the table. It’s such a warm, comforting gesture that he has to fight to stay upright and not melt right into her fleeting touch. Without looking at him again, she unfurls her napkin over her lap and they begin to eat. 

He makes an effort to catch her eye throughout the meal, and every time they do, he’s electrified. He fiddles with the candytuft, still comfortable in his lap, and bites his cheek to stop a smile from forming.

Not one to ruin a good thing, Roy helps her with dishes that night after Berthold takes his leave. It’s the first time they’ve been alone all day. Working shoulder to shoulder with her is equal parts soothing and aggravating; he wonders if she’s feeling all these jumbled up things too. He’s so nervous that he inadvertently scrubs and rinses the dishes far too quickly just to give his hands something to do.

“Thank you for dinner, Riza. It was delicious,” he says finally. He accepts a towel from her to dry his damp hands. 

“It was my pleasure,” Riza replies. “Thank you for chopping the wood this morning.”

It’s like she’s moving in warp speed and slow motion at the same time. Leaning over, she places a hand on his shoulder and rises onto the tips of her toes to drop a quick kiss on his cheek. Roy instantly pinks, but can’t think of anything to say except, “It was nothing.”

With a pivot, Riza plucks the half-crumbled candytuft from the kitchen table and tucks it into the collar of Roy’s shirt. She rests both of her hands flat against his chest for just a few agonizing seconds, leaving him completely frozen, before pulling away. 

“Not to me,” she disagrees. And then she’s gone.

Roy hovers over the kitchen sink for a long time, staring at nothing, with a smile on his face.

* * *

Later that night, Berthold flips through his mother’s old flower pressing book in the den, very curious about a certain flower his daughter had very covertly (but not covertly enough) presented to a certain boy earlier that very evening. Berthold pages through dozens of pressed blooms, until he comes across - ah, here it is. Candytuft. Meaning: indifference. 

Berthold lets out an undignified snort. Clever girl, he thinks. Even if the boy doesn’t get the message, this private little slice of knowledge is just funny enough to sustain Berthold for a long time. Like Riza would ever fall for his tricks. 

He’s about to close the book when a bright flash amongst the beige pages distracts him. He flips to its source and discovers a red rose, freshly pressed. How odd, he thinks. He shuts the book and forgets all about it.

* * *

They say that time flies when you’re having fun. And Berthold would never admit it aloud, but having Roy as an apprentice is fun. Their dynamic is much like Berthold’s master-pupil connection with Master Kuo: creative, chaotic, and inspiring. 

Berthold never thought himself the creative one, having found his right brain a bit lacking, but he comes to find that Roy’s strange way of seeing problems and solutions has him bursting with ideas. Especially ideas and theories in regards to that elusive brand of elemental alchemy - flame alchemy. 

Roy advances in his studies quickly. So quickly that Berthold has no qualms about taking Roy on the road during the summers while Riza is with her grandparents. It’s a perfect kick-off to Roy’s journeymanship, where he’ll get to earn a modest paycheck for his services alongside his master. Berthold still dedicates parts of his summers to lectures and writing, but having travel as a main part of the curriculum is a nice supplement to the rest of the year conducting research and experiments at the house. Roy is well on his way to becoming a bright, promising master.

What impresses him even more about Roy is his unwavering moral compass. He, like Berthold, believes that alchemy should be used to serve the people. But Roy is still young, and he is easily impressionable, so Berthold makes a point to keep Roy far away from any military-sanctioned rhetoric about the state alchemy program while they travel. Its motto revolves around service and protection for the people, which is the exact thing Roy is passionate about, but Berthold knows better - the state alchemy program will ruin someone as good as Roy.

But the program is wildly popular, and it's promoted everywhere. Roy is as observant and aware of the program as he is of Berthold’s disdain for it. Berthold himself doesn’t know the path Roy will end up taking, but he prays the boy makes the right choice, whatever that looks like for him. But ultimately, it isn’t up to him.

They spend the last two weeks of their summer travels in Central, where he gives Roy most of that time off to be able to visit his aunt. Berthold willingly spends time with the Grummans, a relationship that has improved so much over the years that Berthold doesn’t mind being there. He even doesn’t hate the tentative friendship he’s struck up with Emily’s husband, Thomas. Their children are well behaved and mind Riza beautifully, the young ones especially. But Berthold still has a hard time conversing easily with Emily, who looks so much like Ava with her long blonde hair and kelly green eyes.

On their last day before they are to return home to Heidel, Berthold treats Riza to a rare night out at Central’s most famous theater company. It’s the perfect night for it: warm but not sticky, and a light, comfortable breeze. Berthold borrows a tuxedo from Geralt, while Emily brings by a modest blue gown and heels for Riza. Berthold has to bite his cheek to keep tears from welling in his eyes when she meets him at the bottom of the stairs. Without his knowing, his daughter has grown into a young lady. 

So he takes his young lady to the theater, and they have a marvelous time. It’s not often that he gets to share culture with Riza. She is very much her mother’s daughter, more comfortable hunkering down in a tree stand than being strapped into a gown. But he is elated at how much she seems to be enjoying herself, laughing at the silly contrived jokes and clapping loudly during the encore. An evening out, however, isn’t complete without a late-night treat, so they stop afterward at a little ice cream parlor a few blocks down from the Grumman home. They perch at a clean table by the window, a wet walnut sundae for him and heaping scoops of teaberry ice cream for her.

The stars have just started to glint through the city smog when they leave the shop. Riza is chattering amicably about this and that as they walk, when all of a sudden she stops dead in her tracks, jerking back on his arm. Berthold sees her stricken expression and tracks her line of sight across the street, where a familiar mop of messy black hair has appeared. It’s none other than Roy Mustang, who strolls along with a young woman just a few years older clinging to his arm. They are laughing together without a care in the world, and neither of them looks away before they catch the young woman pressing a kiss to his cheek. In an instant, the entire mood of the evening changes.

Berthold doesn’t understand why his daughter looks so...however she looks. It’s not anger, exactly. It’s not even sadness or resignation. She looks like someone who’s been struck over the head with something heavy. Dazed, a bit confused, and very much...hurt.

“Let’s go,” Riza mutters. She drops his arm and begins to forge ahead, albeit slowly with the strain the heels have on her feet.

“Slow it down, Little Bird,” Berthold chastises, and she obeys with a huff. “What’s got you so miffed?”

“Nothing, Dad. Let’s just go.”

When they return home to the Grumman house, the entire house is dark, but they can hear the chatter of the rest of the family still enjoying the night in the backyard. Riza makes a beeline for the stairs while Berthold peels his suit jacket off slowly, trying not to agitate the sweaty skin underneath his white dress shirt. He clears his throat. 

“Did you at least have a nice time?” he asks. 

Riza turns slowly and blinks tears from her eyes. She composes herself so quickly he’s not unconvinced he imagined it. Then, she smiles.

“I had the best time, Daddy,” she says earnestly. “Thank you for taking me. I really appreciate it.”

Still, that flat, forlorn look is etched into her pretty face. Nevertheless, she approaches him to kiss his cheek, then retires to her room. 

* * *

When Berthold comes downstairs dressed for the day, his packed suitcase in hand, Roy Mustang is already making himself at home in the parlor, having already charmed Claudette into starting tea while chatting amiably with Geralt. Berthold sets his bags by the door next to Riza’s and bids them a good morning.

The daughter in question is in the kitchen, sipping her cup of tea as he stalks down the hall with a deliberate slowness that seems almost punishing. 

“Morning,” she says, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. It’s grown out over the summer into a fashionable little bob that curls in at the chin. He notices that she looks more dressed up than usual, especially for a day of driving. She wears a knee-length eyelet skirt in powder blue with a matching sleeveless top. Very odd. 

“Good morning, darling,” he replies. “Did you see Roy is in the parlor talking to your grandfather?”

She nods minutely. “I saw him.”

“Better save him before grandpa tries to start him on a chess match,” he joshes, nudging her with his elbow. Riza flinches away and sets her empty teacup in the sink. 

“He’ll be fine.”

She’s pouting, he realizes. She doesn’t want to leave her grandparents - and he can very much appreciate why! Her mood always turned sour at the end of her summer trips.

“Well,” he says with a shrug. “No use delaying the inevitable, right? I’ll go pull the car around. Unless you're planning on breakfast first?"

“I’ll do it!” Riza exclaims. She snatches his car keys off the countertop and bolts from the room before Berthold can think to stop her. Sighing, he makes his way toward the parlor to initiate the dreadful goodbye.

Geralt claps delightedly when Berthold enters the room. 

“Ah! Berthold, I’ve had the exquisite delight of being acquainted just now with your marvelous apprentice. I didn’t know you’d ended up visiting Madam Christmas!”

Berthold laughs humorlessly. “Oh, yes. By the way, you could have warned me about the nature of the...the, er, business, before you sent me over there. I thought I was hopelessly lost.”

Geralt shrugs haplessly. “All’s well that ends well, right? Speaking of - Roy was just telling me how his aunt’s needed to hire more staff recently!”

Berthold resists the urge to undo the top button of his collar. Talking so cavalierly of hostess bars this early in the morning is not a scenario he is comfortable with, even if it is a front for something more. He looks over to Claudette, who smiles along like Geralt is discussing the weather.

“Yes. Business has been good,” says Roy. “I was catching up with one of my sisters last night. You’d like her. She knows a few of your friends.” He turns to Berthold. “I saw you and Riza were out too, sir. I waved but you didn’t see me.”

Three quick honks outside herald Riza’s arrival. Roy jumps up and goes to gather their suitcases by the door. “Wow!” he out as he makes his way toward the puttering car. “Aren’t you impressive?”

Riza just glowers at him and exits the driver’s seat to retrieve the last of the luggage.

“I’ll get that for you,” Roy calls from the trunk. 

“I’ve got it,” she replies flatly.

Claudette winces at the malic tinting her tone and wrings her hands, sharing a worried look with Geralt out of sight of her granddaughter. Berthold rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“She’s just upset to leave, is all,” he offers. “You know how she can be.”

“She was fine until Roy arrived,” Claudette supplies pointedly. She raises her eyebrows like she’s trying to tell him something, and Geralt backs her up with an informed smirk. Berthold feels a migraine coming on.

Outside, Riza has climbed back into the driver’s seat, while Roy lingers on the sidewalk, unsure of what seat to choose lest she reprimands him for not choosing correctly. Berthold joins them, Geralt and Claudette trailing behind him. 

“Dad, can I drive us home?” Riza asks as he crosses to the driver’s side. 

“No,” he says. She scoffs and slides across the bench seat to the passenger side. 

Meanwhile, Roy is shaking Geralt and Claudette’s hands, making a very big deal of thanking them for the morning’s hospitality, and then he has hopped into the backseat. Riza leans out the window to give each of her grandparents a kiss on the cheek, and soon they’re waving to each other while Berthold pulls out of sight.

Heidel is only an hour and forty minutes away from Central, but not even halfway into the return journey, Berthold is ready to pull his hair out. Riza’s foul mood fills the car like a stink bomb. Roy is clearly the cause, though he obviously doesn’t know why because he has this pathetically stricken look on his face and keeps prodding her between her shoulders with his knuckle to get her attention, which she ignores. Then he tugs at the ends of her hair, which he only has to do once before she whips around and tells him to knock it off. That’s the last straw.

Up ahead is a lone gas station. Berthold whips into the parking lot sharply enough that Roy and Riza are thrown sideways. After he’s yanked them to a stop, he whirls around to face Roy and then Riza. 

“You’re mad at him?” he addresses her. Riza glares back, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not!”

Berthold throws his hands into the air. “Then stop acting like he kicked your dog!” 

He opens the door roughly and climbs out, jabbing a finger at each of them. “You have five minutes to settle whatever this is. I’ll not have two fussy teenagers making a radio drama out of today. Got it?”

Riza nods obediently, her head down and an embarrassed flush hot across her nose. She’s not used to being reprimanded. And frankly, he’s not used to her acting like this. Even as a child, she’s never been so...childish.

Berthold stomps into the small gas station and hunts around for something cold to drink. Glancing at his watch, just about a minute has passed.

He opens one of the icebox doors and is relieved by the burst of frozen air that washes over him. He pulls three glass cola bottles out of the cooler and turns to let the air hit his back. Through the bay windows at the front of the store, he can see that Riza has made good on his order and is twisted around while Roy talks, his hands gesticulating. He can see her head shaking as she talks, too. Then, Roy’s hand comes up and covers hers where she grips the back of the bench seat.

Must be some fight, Berthold thinks and plucks a bag of cracker jacks on the way up to the register. The mini fan behind the counter blows his cenz to the floor, and he mutters to himself he bends to pick them up. He’s blessedly distracted then, that he misses Roy leaning forward to kiss Riza square on the mouth. By the time he emerges, the two of them are silently facing forward, their cheeks red.

Berthold approaches the passenger side, prying the door open. “Move over,” he says to Riza, and it takes a moment to register what she means. Her face explodes in a smile. 

“Are you serious?” she exclaims.

“Sure,” he replies, handing her a cold cola bottle as she slides to the driver’s side. He climbs into the car and passes another bottle and the bag of cracker jacks to Roy.

Whatever storm cloud had been following them from Central has lifted and been replaced by pure sunshine. They let the windows down as they fly down the road, the radio on and the wind in their hair. Their cola bottles sweat in the humid air, blessedly cool against their palms. 

Even though their argument is over, something else is creeping in to take its place. Berthold can’t put his finger exactly on what. It’s too distant to name. Instead, he watches the road and the scenery fly by as they creep closer to home. 

It’s lucky he didn’t notice Roy kiss her while they were at the gas station. It’s even luckier that he doesn’t notice Roy staring at her the entire way home with a dazed smile on his face. It’s the luckiest, then, that he also doesn’t notice Riza glancing up to the rearview mirror now and then to meet and hold his eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fact: I threw teaberry ice cream in there to sneakily find out who of my readers hail from Pennsylvania. It takes like neither tea nor berries.
> 
> Next time: Young!Royai heats up ;)


	3. Ain't It a Gentle Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young love. Obsession. Life in motion. Ishval comes calling.

The end of summer bleeds into a crisp, colorful fall. As Berthold takes a stroll about town, Riza is strong on his mind. Since their trip to Central, he’s been coming to terms with her growing up. 

He understands the logic of it. Children grow into adults; it’s biology, the way life works. But he never considered before how quickly the time would pass, and how strange it would be to see his child, his greatest creation, come into her own. It’s humbling and inspiring all at once.

She’ll be busy with the garden today, so Roy volunteered to stay behind instead of accompanying his master to help her get caught up on the rest of her chores. That was considerate, Berthold thought. Ever since they returned home from Central, Roy and Riza had been getting along much better.

_Riza watches her father’s silhouette disappear down the hill. Behind her, Roy’s arms wrap around her waist and pull her tightly into his chest, his lips hot and soft behind her ear. She giggles as he trails kisses down her neck, over her clothed shoulder._

Berthold was so close to cracking flame alchemy that he could taste it. Roy had a few ideas for things they could try next week and wrote down a list of items to try and procure from the apothecary. Berthold scratched his head as he read down the list. He’d never heard of most of these things, but Roy insisted he’d read about them in a new book he’d been perusing in Central’s library. The apothecary would have a better idea, Berthold decided with a shrug. 

_Riza pushes Roy against the wall and pulls him down to meet her. His mouth is hungry, a delicious pressure accompanied by the roll of his tongue against her lower lip; she accepts him eagerly, her approval humming through her body, their push-and-pull creating a punishing current. Riza runs her hands over Roy’s chest, broad and muscular and so tempting. Alchemy could be quite daunting work, physically and mentally, he told her once. She can see that he was right._

_She pops the top few buttons of his shirt and presses her lips to the newly exposed skin of his neck and the divots of his collarbone, nipping here and there, pulling a weak moan from his throat. With a great effort, Roy grips the sides of her face, pulling her back for a kiss. He leans just enough that he can grip the backs of her thighs under her shorts to lift her; her legs wrap around his hips as he carries her into the kitchen and drops her on the countertop._

_“This is risky,” she pants, undoing the rest of his shirt buttons as fast as she can with shaking fingers._

_“Yeah,” agrees, pushing his nose into her neck and laving the silky soft skin with kisses. “But he’ll be gone a while.” He chuckles. “I gave him a bad list.”_

The apothecary has been bustling around the back room for fifteen minutes. Berthold leans against the countertop and drums his fingers idly, casually inspecting the strange menagerie of items the shopkeep stores in the glass case below. 

“Master Hawkeye, are you sure Roy gave you the right list?”

“Yes,” says Berthold. “Checked it twice.”

A rough sigh, and the apothecary returns from the back room empty-handed. “Nothing. I could call out to our sister store, though.”

“If you don’t mind,” Berthold replies. “It’d be a big help.”

The apothecary nod sympathetically and picks up the phone. 

_Roy’s shirt lays in a crumpled heap on the floor; Riza’s follows soon after. Her arms are tangled over his shoulders, his kisses trailing down to the flat of her sternum. She sighs airily as his travels take him north, to the points of her shoulders, the dip of her collarbone, and finally, her neck, sensitive and tingling under his tongue. She drags her nails down his back, dragging a delighted shiver from his head to his toes._

_“You are perfect,” he groans. He pulls her by the bottom so that she is arched taut up against him, and kisses her senseless._

The apothecary reads Berthold’s list over the phone again. He spells each item out separately, twice. The wrinkle in his brow deepens as he nods. And nods. And nods some more.

Berthold gestures for the apothecary to hand over the phone, which he does with great relief. He talks personally with his friend’s very confused counterpart at the sister store and reiterates the list, to which the clerk tells him the same thing that his home apothecary did: that they don’t carry anything remotely like what Berthold is asking for. She says she’s never heard of any of those things.

“Most peculiar,” Berthold muses after he hands the phone back. “That’s not like Roy.”

“Kids make mistakes,” says the shopkeep. 

“I suppose,” he accepts. “You know what? I’ll have him come back later and place the order himself.”

_Roy’s touch is the most magnificent thing. She trembles while he caresses her, his fingers trailing paths up her thighs, across her stomach and sides, down her back. His mouth under her ear whispers the most enchanting, sinful magic; he interludes those words with kisses that make her whole body hot. She grabs him by the hair and guides him back to her so she can capture his lips again, slow and languid in their little world._

_She isn’t sure when exactly he’d become so important to her, but seeing him back in the city with that girl had lit a fire in her she didn’t know was smoldering to begin with. How embarrassed, yet elated she’d been to find out that this mystery girl was not a paramour, but a family member of sorts._

_It burned fast and sharp, and after they’d come home from Central - after he’d kissed her suddenly in the car - she hadn’t been able to successfully stay away from him. She returned the favor in the den that night after her father had gone to bed, leaving him dumbstruck and blushing when she fled._

_When she’d thrown herself onto her bed, her heart thundering like a runaway stallion, she couldn’t believe she’d done it. It was so sudden, so unlike her to get swept up in a boy like this._

_Though, maybe it wasn’t as sudden as she thought. If she thinks hard enough she can remember the first flutters of affection, see the rose gleaming and saturated on the woodpile. He’d tried so hard. She couldn’t help but be endeared to his kind eyes and his persistent blush, that bashful smile. She felt a little guilty about how cold she’d been at first, but it hadn’t been intentional. And in the end, it was worth it to get to know his whole heart._

_He didn’t look at the other girls in town the way he looked at her. He didn’t work shoulder to shoulder with anyone else, didn’t spend weekends in the thick of the forest with her, nor steal quiet evenings with anyone else, tucked under a thick blanket in the drafty den, each with a book in their hands and tea cooling on the coffee table._

_And just the same, he knew her in ways so many didn’t - like how he had found her frozen outside a cold, vacant bedroom at the end of the hall just days ago, and inherently knew it was the room her mother had died in. He’d been so gentle, pulling her away and out into the yard where she could breathe in the fresh air and feel the sun on her face. When he wrapped his strong arms around her, she felt safe enough to cry._

_It all led them to stolen moments like this. But as he pulls away and presses his forehead against hers, it’s a bit hard to remember to feel guilty for sneaking around. One hour alone in the house and they’re eager to be close and craving to be closer, yet too unsure to go further. She wouldn’t mind Roy being her first, but she’s okay with waiting, too. She wants to savor what they have now, so tender yet addicting. It’s sweet and innocent, and there’s more than enough time to just let it be -- this._

_He helps her down from the counter and they dress quickly, turned away from one another, their embarrassment at being so consumed in one another bubbling to the surface. She knows her face is impossibly red as she tucks her breezy top into her shorts once more. She can’t help the girlish giggle that erupts from her when he approaches from behind and presses a chaste kiss on the nape of her neck._

_“I really like you,” he murmurs. He reaches down and pushes a stray lip of her shirt into the waist of her shorts. He gives her hip a gentle squeeze and says, “I’ll see you outside._

_The chores seem easier, the workload lighter, with Roy by her side. It comes as no surprise then, as she wipes a smear of soil from his nose while they work on the garden, she realizes that falling in love with him just may be the easiest thing._

Berthold trudges up the lane deep in thought. When he gets to the top, he’s pleased to see Roy and Riza pulling weeds in the garden, their backs turned to one another as they work in easy silence. Riza wipes a bead of sweat with the back of her hand, so intent that she hardly notices him. 

“Roy, that list,” says Berthold, catching his breath as he approaches. “Mr. Leitzel was stumped. You’ll have to run down and fill the order yourself.”

“Alright,” he says. “Sorry about that. The text I was reading was very much experimental.”

“All the same.”

“I’ll go before sundown, sir.”

“Thank you. Looks good, you two. I’ll go start lunch.”

He affectionately ruffles Riza’s hair, who swats at him with her soil-covered hand. Berthold laughs all the way to the house and looks over his shoulder at them. Their quiet chatter is friendly and easy. How lucky it is that they get along so well. 

* * *

Berthold’s commitment to flame alchemy is starting to toe the line between fastidiousness and obsession. It’s not good. It’s not good at all. 

He’d never thought to classify his work as an addiction before. He’d known of others going mad with power, driven feral and animalistic by their pursuits, but he was above all that. Those were people who had no self-control, no sense of responsibility for their own life. Weak-minded alchemists; Berthold scoffed at the thought. That wasn’t him. 

But then, a few things happen in quick succession that scare him, and he realizes he may have a problem. 

One evening, he rises from his study to seek out dinner, a bit miffed that Riza hadn’t called for him yet. It is nearly 6, and well-past their normal dinner schedule. Then, he opens the door and stumbles foot-first into a large tray of cold food and tea surreptitiously notched next to his door. Hearing the commotion, Riza rushes down the hallway and gasps at the mess of pork, mashed potatoes, and gravy squished under his feet and strewn across the floorboards. 

She’s done nothing wrong, but something in him snaps, and for the first time in his life, Berthold screams at his daughter. He doesn’t even know what about it, but it’s loud and volatile and feels cruelly sour on his tongue. She immediately shrinks in on herself, wide-eyed and terrified of this monster taking the form of her beloved father, but it doesn’t stop him, not the sight of her fear or her regression into the form of a little girl in his mind’s eye. Her terror doesn’t get through to him. He doesn’t know how long he shrieks and shakes his fist at her before Roy appears, pushing himself in between them. 

The next moments are a blur. Riza disappears. Roy grips him by the shoulders and drags him down the hall, shoving him roughly into the bathroom. His student all but throws him into the bath and cranks the faucet until cold, sobering water gushes out. 

“Clean yourself up!” he barks and slams the door behind him.

Berthold realizes with a rush that Riza had been dressed for school and that the sunlight streaming through the window at the top of the stairs had not been the setting evening sun, but bright, morning rays. He begins to shiver and leans forward to coax hot water from the tap. He realizes he’s still wearing his clothes, and peels them off sluggishly, dropping them onto the tile floor into a sopping heap. 

There is noise outside the bathroom door, whispers and sniffling, but it blends in with the chatter that has taken over his brain. Berthold leans back into the hot bath, staring up at the ceiling, where a flame array has appeared in his mind’s eye. It’s glaring, red, and begging to be tampered with. The twin serpents hiss and slither, intersecting at the base of the array, followed by concentric circles and hourglasses and old, Xerxian curses. They dance and twirl in the air, arranging themselves in such a perfect arrangement that Berthold finds himself smiling. It’s so beautiful, this amazing thing he’s done. Remarkable, a work of genius. He knew he could do it. He’s almost done it.

But, something is missing, and that twinge of ‘not-yet-not-yet’ annoys him. Something isn’t right. But what could it be?

He lays there, near catatonic, until the water chills again and he is trembling in the dirty vat of his filth. For some reason, he can’t bring himself to get up. His bones feel heavy and weak. The door creaks open sometime later and Roy emerges, grimacing at him like a father would a misbehaved child. But there’s a tinge of something more behind his apprentice’s countenance. Something that matches the fear on Riza’s face. And something angry, too.

“Boy,” Berthold hisses. “Get me a towel.”

“No,” Roy replies. Then, he continues in a low, barely restrained voice. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Insolent brat,” he yelps. “Help me up, now. I’ve had enough of you wasting my time. I have work to do if you haven’t noticed!”

“Sir, you are wasting away!” Roy snaps at him, and Berthold’s eyebrows shoot up. 

“Now, listen here -”

“No, Master Hawkeye. You listen.”

At this, Roy pulls a set of towels from the cabinet. Berthold grumbles while Roy helps him up, too mentally and physically drained to care much that he’s in such a state that his teenage apprentice has to help him this way. Roy turns and snags a bathrobe from the back of the bathroom door and tosses it at him. 

Once Berthold is dry, Roy helps him down the now clean hallway to his bedroom. It smells fresh and his bed has new, clean sheets. Berthold jerks out of Roy’s grip. 

“What are you doing? Take me back to my study.”

“No.”

“Boy, I’ve had about enough of you disobeying me.”

“You’re obsessed, Master Hawkeye. This isn’t healthy,” Roy admonishes. “Do you realize what you just did? You kicked over a platter of food - food that Riza brought to you because you’ve refused to come to dinner for a week - and then you berated her as you did! What's the matter with you?”

“She--” Berthold stutters. Blinks. Blinks some more. “What? When?”

Roy lets out an aggravated sigh. “Just an hour ago. You don’t remember?”

“Where is she?”

“School,” Roy says. “It’s morning, sir.”

That’s right. It was morning. It was morning and Riza went to school in the morning. She’s at school. She made him dinner. Dinner, delicious dinner. When was the last time he had dinner? Why didn’t Riza bring him dinner? Where was Riza? Where was Ava?

“Ava?” he asks weakly. 

Ava stands next to Roy looking angrier than he’d ever seen her before. He stares at her, broken, and sighs. “I’ve done something bad, haven’t I?”

Roy’s scowl turns troubled, glancing back and forth to the space that draws his master’s eye so keenly. Slowly, he makes his way to the closet and pulls out Berthold’s nightclothes. He sets them on the bureau and steps back. 

“I’m going to bring you some food,” he says. “Get dressed and get in bed. That’s an order.”

Berthold glances at Ava, who has her arms folded over her chest, and nods to him. 

“Alright. Fine.”

He sinks into his bed and stares at the ceiling, but the array isn’t there. It’s dark in the room despite the hour, and vaguely he hears the bedroom door open and the sound of something placed at his bedside. He doesn’t particularly care what it is. All he cares about is the sound of Ava’s voice in his ear. 

She whispers to him, “Sleep.” And so he does.

* * *

Roy waits for Riza after school with a worried, weathered look on his face. She emerges from the front gates of the secondary school with her friends around her, significantly more at ease than she had been that morning. Roy couldn’t believe she’d gone to school at all, but she insisted through her tears that she'd wanted to go. And the more he thought about it, it made sense. It wouldn’t have been any more of a comfort to stay home.

She smiles at the sight of him, blushing when her friends poke and tease her about her boyfriend. Ugh. The word sounded almost juvenile for what they meant to one another. But he was her boyfriend, wasn’t he? It was so...normal.

Riza waves to her friends before rushing ahead to join him, instantly lacing their hands together. Roy hums as they begin to walk. Normal sounds...nice. He’d give up a lot for more of it. 

“How is he?” she asks hesitantly. 

Roys nods. “Better. He’s been sleeping all day.”

“I hope he sleeps all night, too. He’s been at it for at least a week.”

“Longer, if you ask me.”

Initially, when she had begun fretting about her father’s health, Roy had been quick to disagree. Alchemists were notoriously methodical and a little obsessive; it didn’t mean that Berthold was a danger to himself by working a bit too hard. But over time, Roy had changed his opinion and began to side with Riza. The man barely ate. Hardly slept. Shortened Roy’s lessons every day, pushed him to help more alchemical research or go off and make himself scarce. He’d become increasingly unpredictable and snappish. This morning had been a culmination of his obsession lashing out at them. That man wasn’t Riza’s father. 

Riza had been racking her brain all day on how to address it. Berthold listened to reason, listened to her, but could she get through to him when he was manic like this? She’d never encountered this side of him before, and she was scared that over time, he would hurt himself or someone else. She knew exactly what flame alchemy entailed, and she’d woken many times from nightmares of him producing flame and getting too close to the new gas tank that supplied the heat to their house. He could blow them all with little effort if he didn’t take care.

Her thoughts had distracted her all day at school, and they’re distracting her now. So thoroughly, that she doesn’t notice they’d walked all the way home hand in hand. Roy squeezes her fingers once and withdraws, and as soon as they crest the lane she can see now what he sees - her father, sitting in a rocker on the front porch, waiting for them. 

He greets with a tentative wave and a sheepish grin, and she sighs.

* * *

The flame array is imprinted on his brain. But he’s trying hard to ignore it. 

Riza is what’s important. Riza, his beloved child, his sweet girl, who he’d utterly disrespected with his unkind words. She doesn’t deserve any of this. She’s been nothing but good and dutiful her entire life, and he allows his obsession to take over like this. He allows it to hurt her. When Berthold wakes up that afternoon, he is cold with shame. 

Sitting on the front porch helps. Next to his rocker is a matching one that Ava used to occupy. When they had first moved in, they spent evenings watching the sunset on this very porch. It’s in just the right spot for the sun’s warmth to wash over his face, for the breeze to tousle his hair. His copper locks are clean and loose, spilling down his shoulders and framing his face, He still feels exhausted, but better than he has in a long time. 

Roy stalks just behind Riza like a bodyguard as they crest the lane and make their way to the porch. He is glancing back and forth between the two of them, ready to jump into action if he feels a threat against her. It makes Berthold feel pathetic that he’s wounded his girl so badly with his words and actions that this young man feels compelled to act as her protector. Against her own father.

With every step she takes toward him, she trembles a little, clearly nervous. It makes Berthold feel awful, and he resists the urge to hide his face so she won’t have to see it. 

But she smiles at him. She smiles and touches Roy on the shoulder to let him know it’s okay. She settles into her mother’s rocker next to him, and Roy nods curtly and excuses himself into the house.

“Elizabeth,” Berthold says as soon as the door snaps shut. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s happened to me.”

“You scared me,” she mumbles. 

“Darling, I have no excuse,” he continues. “But somehow, I wasn’t in my right mind. I can’t believe I spoke to you like that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Riza reaches over and touches his hand. 

“I forgive you,” she says. “But I’m worried about you.”

“It won’t happen again,” he insists. “I’ll do better.”

She is quiet for a long time. 

“I’m frightened,” she admits eventually.

Berthold squeezes her hand. “I’d never hurt, you darling.”

She shrugs. “I know. I’m just worried you’ll hurt yourself, by accident.”

He sighs. Alchemy isn’t always safe. There are real risks involved; it comes with the territory. Hell, human transmutation was the very definition of danger. But flame alchemy was different if he could control it. And with practice, he would. 

“If something did happen, though,” he says. “I’d make sure you were taken care of.”

“Dad!” she chastises and jerks her hand away. There are angry tears in her eyes. “Don’t say things like that!”

He’s not sure how this conversation took the turn that it did, but she’s furious now.

“Promise me you’ll be more careful,” she demands. “Please. I can’t lose you, too.”

So much has been taken from Riza already. He knows this. But flame alchemy…

“Oh, you don’t need me,” he huffs. “What is an old man like me good for, anyway?” 

He’d meant it to be a joke, to add a drop of levity, but it only makes her more distraught. 

“You’re my father, and I need you,” she insists. Tears are gathering in her eyes, still bloodshot. “It doesn’t matter how old I get. I’ll always need you.”

He can sense Roy hovering by the door; the floorboards are squeaking under his shifting weight inside. He can’t bring himself to meet Riza’s eyes, and instead fixes his stare on his lap, on the porch below his feet. If he stares hard enough, he can nearly see the outline of a serpent head slithering up the plank. 

Her choked sob is mournful and broken. She collapses in on herself again, and at that moment Roy emerges from the house and goes to her. She barely notices and fixes Berthold with an incredulously pained stare. 

“Without you, I don’t have anyone,” she whispers. “You’d really do that to me?”

At that, Berthold looks up and meets her red-rimmed eyes. He bites his tongue because what he instantly wants to say is that that’s not true. If he weren’t around, she’d still be surrounded by people. Her grandparents were still healthy. She had an aunt, an uncle, and cousins who adored her. She had more friends than he ever did, a support system in town that was like an extended family. 

She had Roy. A kind young man who looks out for her. Someone who could, in his absence, take care of her. 

But this disconsolate look on her face tells him everything that her words don’t. Berthold is the last remaining member of the family she knew first. She has no mother. She has no siblings. In this big empty house, since she was a child, he was her everything. The one who held her hands as she walked for the first time, taught her about flowers and birds and trees. Taught her to read, how to count, how to drive. Dried her tears and picked her up when she fell, bandaged her scraped knees, and told her stories. Walked her to school.

He was her father. To live without each other was...

“Elizabeth,” he murmurs, reaching across the open space between them to grip her hand. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Dad,” she croaks.

He’s never hurt her in his life, and yet in less than a day he’s done more than enough. So Berthold rises, and with him, he pulls Riza into his arms and hugs her tight. He refuses to make eye contact with Roy, who is glaring at him so severely that he can feel it burning his forehead.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Little Bird,” he whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

He promises her every day he’ll be careful. She eyes his study with contempt every time he ventures there for the day with Roy on his heels, but he makes a pact with himself that he’ll no longer skip meals and will get eight hours of sleep per night. He’ll take breaks and take walks and drink more tea and get some fresh air. For a while, it’s enough. Things are good. 

But flame alchemy is always there, always in the back of his mind. It’s pasted to the ceiling, the floor, the insides of his eyelids. It’s his dark, lurking little friend, watching him from the shadows, a pride he won’t let go of - and he suspects it will be for a long time - but he refuses to let it take him down. 

He still has a long alchemical career ahead of him, and when frustration creeps into his brain, he reminds himself that he doesn’t have to figure it out today. Not even tomorrow. He has time. He’ll get it done, in time. And when he feels obsession licking at him, the urge to sink into his research overtaking his good sense, he turns to the outside world. He helps Riza in the garden. He goes into town. He takes the car out. He helps him help himself.

But it’s still there. Always there. And there are nights when he indulges more than he should, gives in and lets it control him, manipulate him, in its insidious way. And in the mornings, when the dark shadows cling to his countenance and Riza fixes him with a panicked look, his little friend says “lie to her”, and he pats her hand. He lies and promises he has not strayed. He tells himself it’s not so bad, it’s not so bad. Just for a little while longer.

Then one day, it happens. He finds his answers.

Instead of the answer hiding in his existing work, or even in his new research, it comes to him in his sleep. He snaps awake in the middle of the night, and there it is. He can see it.

The missing piece is so obvious that Berthold is about two heartbeats away from screaming at the top of his lungs. But instead, he launches out of bed and bolts for the fireplace.

He sticks his fingers into its cold, sooty underbelly and hurriedly draws the flame transmutation circle on the carpet. He goes back for more and more until he’s got it, the fine dirt caked into his fingernails until it hurts. He can see it. He can see the chemical reactions forming around him, see the twin serpents from the array twining and hissing. He pictures the flames rising from the fireplace, sees the equation’s natural solution. He slams his hands onto the transmutation circle and feels a wild burst of glee as it happens just the way he’s always imagined. 

When it crackles to life, it’s utterly magnificent. Flames burst forth, searingly hot, and shoot upwards into the fireplace with such force that the entire room is shaking. And the heat - my god, heat - sears him from his proximity, and he feels his arm burning as he holds in front of his face. But he doesn’t care. God, he doesn’t care. His joy is hotter than the flame as he laughs wildly, like a demented hyena, his face contorted. 

“I did it!” Berthold screams into the empty room, the rumble of the flame hissing and popping. It sears the fireplace, the walls, the curtains. The room is on fire, and he doesn’t care. He did this. He created this. “I’ve done it, Ava! I’ve done it!”

But as soon as the phenomenon has burst from his transmutation circle, it peters out in a little puff of smoke. Amazing things have come from his mind, his hands and if this isn’t the best day of his life he doesn’t know what it is. He’s overwhelmed. “I did it. I did it.”

He’s consumed. So consumed, that when Roy and Riza come rushing and flinging the door, he doesn’t even register they’re there. They gape at the sight of the fireplace, now charred and unrecognizable, the hot stench of burning wood and carpet under their noses. The flames are gone. But the damage, hot and smelly, remains. Riza rushes to her father’s side; Berthold slumps to his knees and collapses.

* * *

If fire is unpredictable, flame alchemy is barely restrained chaos.

Berthold did not escape unscathed. His room notwithstanding, the burns on his arms and hands itch like hell, and Riza is not at all sympathetic when she changes the bandages. He promised her he would be careful. And then he wasn’t. And look what happened. 

Still, he’s inconsolably proud of himself. He hasn’t forgotten the magic formula to his flame array and spends hours perfecting the drawing. But at some point, that pride fades. And when he looks at it, all he feels is shame. It’s the disappointed look Riza shoots at him every time she sees his burns. It’s the accusatory way she asks for more money to work on the repairs to his bedroom, which in the end caused more damage than they realized to their old, fragile house. 

But still...he’s cracked the code. He’s done the thing he’s set out to do. And while he’s still on that high, he sends a letter to Master Kuo describing his great accomplishment. He’s not sure if his old master is still alive, but Berthold remembers the address like he’d been writing it for years. Even if it never reaches him, its story is important. He’s glad he wrote it down no matter what happens. And it gets him thinking about what’s next.

There’s got to be a way to pinpoint the flames so he doesn’t nearly set the whole house on fire like he did the first time. Manipulate the air around oneself to create shapes with the fire, paths, and direct hits. Berthold imagines the pasture behind the forest, pictures a controlled burn around a small perimeter where weeds have grown up and choked the saplings, where the soil is too damaged to yield a crop. He rubs his temples, begging his brain to do something incredible. There’s got to be a way.

For every good idea, for every use of flame alchemy he can think of, he makes himself consider a problem. He knows this is a dangerous power. He can only imagine the destruction one could wreak with flame alchemy. He sees now, after all these years, why Master Kuo was intent on harnessing earth, air, and water instead. Still, it’s been his loftiest goal. And he decides there and then, staring at his burnt hands, his ruined home - this knowledge should never be made available. It will be his, and his alone.

Perhaps someday, he’ll teach Roy, who is skilled and possesses a strong sense of self-control. But Berthold is still hesitant to start teaching him flame alchemy until he has enough of a grip on it himself to provide safety instruction. 

In the meantime, the secrets must be protected. Berthold considers the notebooks filled with sketches upon notes upon equations, all pointing toward the enigmatic flame array that he can’t seem to stop illustrating. All of it needs to burn, sooner rather than later. But then...how will he teach?

An unsavory memory comes to mind of a farmer years ago, who’d recorded his research in ink upon the back of an animal. 

The flames from that night had impaired his right arm significantly more than his left. Berthold unwinds the bandages on his left arm, which are concentrated more around his wrist and hand. They’re healing nicely, the blisters having mostly drained and now giving way to new skin. Rebirth. 

There’s an expanse of skin on the underside of his forearm arm, below his wrist. Blessedly unblemished and smooth. How simple would it be to gaze upon that skin and see a flame array in its place? He can practically see it now like he always has. 

Tattooing someone unwilling. Inking something permanent onto the skin of a helpless thing that didn’t wish it. Like that pig. That pain, that trauma, was something Berthold would never inflict on another. But on himself…

Well, what’s the harm in that?

* * *

Sneaking around is half the fun. 

They’ve run off into the woods on a quiet Sunday, through the brambles and broken tree limbs to a little open pasture with nothing but tall stalks of grass curtailed by more trees, tall enough that they are completely obscured from view while lying on the blanket. Though, it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t. They are far enough from the house that it’s barely visible through the dense canopies. They are completely alone.

They need this escape. Both of them have been worried sick over Berthold for such a long time that they’re mentally and emotionally exhausted. They forget what it’s like not to constantly police him, make sure he’s not overworking himself. But his obsession is his own distraction, and he is more oblivious than ever before. They don’t have to sneak around to avoid someone who is pointedly looking away.

Exploration is the other half of the fun. 

And it’s not just the physical things, though they like that part very much. They spend their stolen time kissing here, touching there. Yet it’s clear to them both that this goes beyond physical attraction. For to be known is to be loved. They share things about each other that are so mundane and arbitrary that it seems silly to even say them out loud; still, these little truths make them all the more real to one another.

Then there are the things they don’t need to say, the observations gleaned from time spent close. Like how Roy has barely-there dimples that appear only when he finds something truly funny or the way he takes the stairs two at a time, or how he’s instantly soothed by her fingertips tracing his face. Things like Riza’s bottom lip and the way it juts out when she reads, how she likes a little bit of cinnamon sprinkled on top of her coffee, or how intently she likes to study their hands when they’re entwined.

On their blanket in the field, Riza dozes against his chest. He’s been chewing on stalks of grass while watching the clouds float overhead. He works another blade of grass into a tight little loop, tying it at the end. Carefully, he slips the grass ring onto her finger. It’s been a lazy day, just the two of them. Just how they like it. But his mind is churning, and there’s something he needs to share. 

Riza stirs enough to drowsily incline her head up; she places kisses on his jaw, his chin, and finally works her way to his mouth. This kiss is long and deep; he reaches up with one hand to stroke her cheek.

"Hi."

"Hello."

She settles back onto his chest after their interlude, fiddling with her grass ring. His knuckle runs short strokes up and down her back, and she thinks she might fall asleep again when he takes a deep breath. 

The truth is, he’d been thinking seriously about enlisting in the military. 

It had been a childhood interest of his, though it was always overshadowed by his love of alchemy. As a young teenager, he’d thought that to be his path until he found out that making a living through alchemy was feasible, and he jumped at the opportunity to make his way in life with his passion at his fingertips. Then, after joining the Hawkeyes and learning of Berthold’s unfavorable opinion of the military, he’d decided that that interest was gone for good. 

But about a year ago, while Berthold and Riza had been out, a recruiter had called the house. And when Roy took the time to listen to what the man had to say, he was inspired. Ultimately, he declined, but the recruiter encouraged him to keep thinking about it - and when he was a little older, maybe he’d change his mind.

Her smile, sweet like sunshine, makes his chest hurt. The pain must be plain as day on his face. She draws a line down his temple and asks, “What is it?”

So he tells her the truth, and then some. 

He learned about the state alchemist program while on the road with Berthold. The conversation with the recruiter was already heavy on his heart, and now the revelation of becoming a state-certified alchemist - with the excellent pay and the officer ranking just scratching the surface of the benefits - his interest in the military was renewed. 

He buried his nose in books about Amestrian history and military conflict, and he saw a niche for himself forming as a righteous state alchemist who worked for the people, protected and served. Then, after meeting Riza’s grandfather and finding out that he was _the_ General Grumman - a longtime personal friend of his aunt’s - it all but sealed the deal. He respected General Grumman very much - and if a man like him was an advocate for the military, he was sure that Berthold’s misgivings were founded in a bias that Roy could overlook.

But he knew what such a revelation would mean. To share this with his master would mean expulsion. He’d never learn flame alchemy, let alone master it - and his research contributions weren’t enough for him to make his own connections. He needed Berthold to teach him. 

He could see the benefit of flame alchemy in the military as a peace giver and lifesaver, rejuvenator, and healer. Because fire is as much responsible for rebirth as it is for destruction. He could see himself using it to help the people. He imagines himself as a champion of the people, a hero - wielding alchemy in the name of good.

Riza’s departing warmth leaves chills in her wake when she sits up. She listens intently while he speaks. Her expression is contemplative, but there is concern there, and it melts into a wrinkle on her forehead. At some point, she stops nodding and goes very quiet. She looks scared, where he is energized. Roy takes her hands in his and begs her to say something. 

“I believe you when you say you’ll change the world,” she admits. “But he’ll never teach you flame alchemy if you tell him the truth.” He squeezes her hand. “But I don’t want you to lie to him either. He’d be so hurt if he found out that I knew.”

Roy swallows. “I’d never use you to sway his opinion,” he says. “I just wanted you to know what I was thinking.”

But the truth is, there’s more. He thumbs the grass ring on her finger and thinks about the benefits of the military, besides the impact he hoped to make: Income. Housing. Health benefits. Stability.

Things that extended to a spouse.

He pushes the thought away before it can make him blush. He’d been fantasizing about it for months. Still, she’s a year younger than him, and in school. It’s too early to think such things...isn’t it?

“How long until you…?” she asks, not willing to say the words.

He clears his throat. “Once I submit the paperwork, I can join the academy in the fall. And from there...” He shrugs. “Who knows?”

She nods, then crawls toward him. He pulls her into his arms and holds her, dusting kisses on her forehead.

“Just...don’t say anything to him yet,” she murmurs. “He’ll send you away. I’m not ready.”

“I won’t,” Roy promises. “I’ll wait as long as I can.” He pauses. “Have you given any thought? To...you know. Your future? What you’d like to do?”

She swallows audibly. “Um.”

And it's at that moment, when Roy draws his head back to look at her, that he catches fiddling with the grass ring. She is blushing, struggling to stifle a smile. Then, she looks up, a confident grin beaming back at him. 

“First, University,” she says. “I’m not sure where yet. Studying history, or languages.”

“Botany?”

“Sure.”

“Animal sciences.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Cartography?”

“Everything. Why not?”

He laughs. “‘Why not?’ I like that.” He leans back until they’re curled up against each other on the blanket again, just as they were before. 

“You know,” he muses. “The military has lots of options for women. And you’re an exceptional shot. A natural leader. They’d snap you up in a heartbeat.”

Her curious hum rumbles against his chest. “Dad would kill me.”

“He wouldn’t,” he assures her, reaching up to card his fingers through her fine, newly cropped hair. He rubs the ends between his fingertips. “Just something to think about. Options are good.”

“Options are good,” she agrees. “As long as there’s still me and you.”

Roy will have to tell Master Hawkeye eventually. Their conclusion as teacher and pupil is inevitable no matter what he chooses. But, Roy soothes himself with the knowledge that the beginning of the rest of his life is just ahead. 

As long as there’s still him and her.

* * *

Berthold wipes the sweat from his brow as the needle dips into his skin again, sharp and too-ticklish-too-hard-it-hurts. He can’t look. If he looks, he’ll get sick. If he gets sick, he won’t go through with it. If he doesn’t go through with it, it isn’t safe.

He’d found an artist outside the village who would help him. She hadn’t asked questions, hadn’t hounded him for an explanation, a story. She gave him the price; he paid in advance. He lays atop the folding chair trying to convince his body to unclench, to breathe. 

Their singular session feels like it takes days. He’d insisted he wanted it done all at once. But the design is intricate, the details meticulous. And it couldn’t be wrong. If one iota was out of place, it’d be ruined. 

He sits up abruptly and cranes his head as close as he can without interrupting the artist, fighting down the nausea slithering up his esophagus. Catching a glimpse of a particularly delicate section, he smiles, satisfied and excited. She was worth every cenz, he decides. It is just as he’d hoped.

At the end of their session, after-care instructions in hand, Berthold ambles to the car and unwinds the bandages to drink in his life’s masterpiece. Even in the dark of night, it glows red and powerful. He resists the urge to get sucked into its beauty and instead reapplies the bandages before starting the ignition. 

The flame array is part of him now. 

* * *

Roy shakes out his wrists, the lamplight on his table growing dimmer along with his motivation. He’d spoken to the military recruiter the week before and his enlistment paperwork had already arrived, sooner than he’d expected. He’d requested it to be sent to the post office, worried that Berthold would see it in their mailbox and become suspicious. 

His caution was making him paranoid; Berthold had gone away for a day-long errand and wasn’t back yet, but Roy had checked the house half a dozen times to make sure it was safe to work. 

The paperwork had taken hardly any time at all. But with it came study materials for the military entrance exam, and his eyes had been glued to his practice book ever since.

If scrawling through enlistment paperwork and study materials in his master’s home is a risk, then he is a daredevil. Behind him, Riza lays on his bed, curled into a ball with a forgotten book fallen from her grip.

“What mechanical components are used between a wheel and axle to reduce friction?” he murmurs to himself. 

Riza’s sleep-laden voice cuts through his quiet considerations. “Bearings,” she rasps. 

“Hey,” Roy teases. “Go back to your own bed, would you?”

“No,” she says, curling tighter into the blankets with a serene smile.

He reclines in the chair until his back crackles under the pressure. “I think I’m done for the night. Want to help me study tomorrow?”

“Mmhmm.” She buries her nose into his pillow. 

Carefully shutting his things away in his desk drawer and flicking off the lights, Roy considers Riza’s natural aptitude. He’s always known she’s smart as a whip - better than him at almost everything. He knows she spoke fondly of university and was looking forward to visiting a few in the summer, but he couldn’t shake the notion that the military would be better for having her. Just as he is. 

He crawls under the covers and nestles in next to her, his arm crooking around her waist to pull her closer. She sighs, decompressing deeper into the pillows. He can see that her grass ring has left a faint green stain; she’d worn it surreptitiously for a few days, but it’d been lost to the shower drain earlier. She’s fresh from said shower, her hair newly dry and smelling of something sweet. Nice.

Days and nights spent with her were growing shorter. He’d never appreciated her more than he did now, asleep and wrapped in his arms. As excited he was for his future, there was still a strangely unmoored sensation twitching inside him. He couldn’t put his finger on why he felt so apprehensive, so he channeled his Aunt Chris. He pictured her puffing on a cigarette at the bar, waving the smoke away with the back of her hand. 

“Who wouldn’t be nervous?” she would say. “It’s your future, Roy-Boy. Think of how restless you were before you started your apprenticeship.”

And he had been nervous - but this was different. It was almost a bad feeling, something sinister. Like a warning. 

Riza moves against him, and he sighs, relaxing his grip. Despite his enthusiasm, he doesn’t want to leave her. He’s sure that’s what is, in reality. He’s young and in love. Of course, the idea of saying goodbye would fill him with dread. 

It’s a problem for another day. Roy tucks his chin above Riza’s head and closes his eyes. He’ll savor her warmth for now. And he’ll bite back the acute chill of disappointment when it washes over him in the morning, where her body’s imprint will remain but she’s long since slipped away.

* * *

The tattoo is itchy as hell. Berthold hadn’t expected that.

It’s healing nicely, the colors brighter and lines sharper after the initial peeling process had begun. It’s still sensitive and a little sore. That first night, after he’d come home absurdly late, he slept with it propped and elevated on his pillows. Throughout today, he’d supplemented with some over-the-counter supplements, and that had helped. It seemed to grow angry at night, the pain stinging just enough to make it difficult for him to sleep. 

So here he was, past his bedtime, rustling through the bathroom cupboards to find something a little stronger. Between the three of them living in this house, he was sure there was something in here that would do the trick. 

_“What are most wires made from?” Riza asks. They’re sitting next to each other on the couch, downstairs in the den, with a modest fire burning in the little fireplace. It’s late - Berthold had retired hours ago - but it’s the only time Roy feels comfortable studying for his military entrance examination. He sent the papers in a week ago and took care to note on the form to only communicate via post. Do not call._

_He’s been on edge ever since, but being quizzed by Riza helps. And there’s something about her methods that has him extra motivated._

_“Copper,” Roy answers confidently._

_“Good,” she replies, pulling the test booklet away from where it obscures her face so she can drop a kiss on his lips. “Which two metals are most commonly used in solder?”_

_“Tin and...lead?”_

_She nods, and kisses him again, a little longer this time. When she pulls away, Roy has a goofy, dazed look on his face. She smirks. “Correct.”_

He’s taken something marked specifically for severe pain and hopes it works quickly. He hovers in the hallway. He can’t see a light underneath Roy or Riza’s bedrooms. It’s late; they must have gone to bed already, too.

But the problem is now that he’s up, he’s _up_ , and he has a long day tomorrow. He’s certainly not interested in lying awake for hours on end. Gingerly, so as not to wake them, he tiptoes down the creaky old staircase and shuffles to the kitchen. Some chamomile tea should be just right. 

But to his surprise, the kettle is already out. How strange.

_Roy stretches out the length of the couch, his long legs forced to bend to accommodate him. Riza has his full attention, her knees planted on either side of his hips while she holds his test booklet aloft._

_Studying had taken a turn towards the distracting._

_“Which ecosystem,” she begins. “Houses thousands of species and has tall trees that form a ceiling from the sun?”_

_“Easy. Tropical rainforest.” Roy purses his lips in an exaggerated smooch. She flicks him in the chest._

_“Nope.”_

_“Deciduous forest?”_

_“Colder.”_

_“Tundra? No way.”_

_“No, your guess was colder.”_

_“Come on, Professor Hawkeye. Um...ah, taiga. Gotta be.”_

_She hums her assent and lowers herself until she is flush with his chest. She drops a fluttery kiss to his nose, but Roy’s more eager than that; he intercepts her next attempt with his lips. He sits up and turns them so that she is comfortably straddling his lap, and he leans against the soft back of the sofa, sighing as she sinks against him._

Berthold peeks into the foyer and slips down the hall, toward the parlor and the den. There, he can see the faint glow of the fireplace flickering under the door’s gap. He’ll bet a million cenz that Roy is up; he stays up consistently late and is always exhausted in the morning. 

Maybe a chat with Roy is just what he needs. He could use the company. And he bets the room is nice and toasty.

But in the foyer, the shrill ring of the telephone makes him jump. He crosses the floorboards quickly and yanks the receiver off of its holder, lest it wakes Riza. He clears his throat and answers quietly. 

“Hello, Mr. Hawkeye,” greets a friendly voice. “I’m calling from the Central Command Military Academy. I apologize for calling so late, but I’m trying to reach a Mr. Roy Mustang about his enlistment paperwork. Now, it says here to only reply by post, but there are a few things we need to discuss with him urgently.”

Berthold feels the color drain from his face, his hand clenching the phone handle in a white knuckle grip.

Through gritted teeth, he hisses, “What the hell are you talking about?”

_Roy bites back a disappointed moan as Riza unleashes his lower lip from her teeth. She wrenches around to face the closed door. “Did you hear that?”_

_“No,” he defies and nuzzles his nose into her neck._

_She huffs. “I swear the phone just rang.”_

_“I didn’t hear anything,” he replies and guides her face back to his. “Now what were you asking about chisels?”_

_“What are they used for?” she repeats, and Roy’s delighted chuckle ignites her entire body._

_“Oh, I know all about that,” he says. “It’s used for…” He leans in to slip his tongue into her mouth, coiling his around hers before pulling back. “...twisting.”_

_“Wrong,” comes her deadpan reply._

_“Oh. Ah, that’s right, because it’s actually used for…” With a devious smile, he slides both of his hands down to squeeze her rear, rolling his hips up to meet hers. She emits a delighted squeak, her blush shooting down her neck as she drops the study book to grip his shoulders. “...grinding.”_

_“Still wrong,” she says breathlessly. “It’s used for cutting.”_

_“I think I deserve points for creativity.”_

_“I don’t think that will work during the test…”_

Several heavy, angry steps pound down the hallway, too quickly for either of them to react but for a confused shared lock between them. Suddenly, the door to the den careens open, the force so strong that the old door bounces right back. On the other side stands Berthold, red-faced and seething, his entire body trembling. 

But one look at their compromising position sends Berthold’s blood pressure into the stratosphere. Still, he freezes at the sight like he’s been struck on the head, his finger poised to point and accuse.

It’s Riza’s soft warning of, “Oh, God,” that snaps him out of hit. His complexion flips from red to purple.

“You...you traitorous dog!” he screams at Roy. “Get the hell away from her!”

Riza slides off of Roy’s lap and puts as much space as she can between them. She nudges the fallen study book under the sofa with her foot. 

“Sir,” Roy says firmly, his hands pushed out from his body in a placating motion as he stands. “Sir, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You will be when I’m through with you! The disrespect! I’m appalled ever let you into this house!”

“Dad,” Riza pleas. “Stop this, it’s my fault.”

“No, Riza,” Roy interrupts.

“Oh, I’ll get to you later,” he snarls at Riza, then whirls back on Roy. Berthold had always been a tall, imposing man, but with all six feet of him puffed up like a bird of prey assessing a threat, his long nose sneering and his hair unbound, he is piss-yourself scary. 

“Sir,” Roy tries again, but Berthold takes several great steps until he is inches from his pupil’s face. 

“Silence.”

The lividity oozes off of Berthold, wave after wave. His nose twitches while he grits out, “Your military recruiter called.”

Roy pales to a corpse-like grey. 

“Said your papers went through. Congratulations.”

Roy can’t bring himself to make a sound. His entire body is shaking so violently he fears that even the slightest twitch will make him collapse. 

“I am sure I don’t have to explain my reaction,” he continues, his voice low, near a whisper. “You know how I feel. You know how I’ve warned you. And yet, you lower yourself like this. You’ve wasted what I’ve taught you and…” He is panting now, his volume steadily gaining until it’s snuffed by the click of his jaw.

Roy keeps glancing at something below eye-level. It comes to Berthold too late that in his nightclothes, with his hand raised into a fist, his robe has slipped down his forearm. The tattoo stands on display, proud and blood red. 

“Flame alchemy,” Berthold growls, extending his arm to show him the full array. “Dies with me.” He tugs his robe sleeve down to cover it. “Get out of my home.”

“Dad,” Riza whimpers. “Please, don’t.”

“Pack your things, and leave us,” he mutters, ignoring her. “Now.”

* * *

Roy rushes upstairs to cram everything he can into the two suitcases he had brought with him so many years ago. The blood throbs in his ears as he stuffs clothes, books, notes, toiletries, and more that he barely recognizes into luggage that has long outgrown him. 

Downstairs, he can hear Berthold and Riza arguing, but he’s only catching snippets of the conversation. He’d forced himself to tune out after Berthold had thrown out an accusation about her virtue, which Riza had answered with a series of insulted shrieks. 

He latches one suitcase, then throws himself on top of the other to cram down its girth. He huffs exasperatedly; it was nearly there. But, not close enough. Berthold comes stomping up the stairs moments later and elbows his door open. 

“Time’s up.”

Roy pulls himself up and reaches into the suitcase to heave out a fistful of dress shirts. It’s just enough to successfully latch, and he grabs the handle of each before following Berthold into the hall and down the stairs. 

Riza is waiting at the front door, arms crossed and stricken. She refuses to look at her father, who brushes past her with no remorse for his reaction. Roy bows his head as he catches up to her. Berthold holds the door open for him and gestures for his departure, but he can’t do that quite yet. 

Pausing, Roy drops his suitcases onto the floor and shoves the ball of crumbled dress shirts into Riza’s arms. Then, he grips her face and kisses her hard. 

“I don’t regret anything,” he asserts. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispers, choked. 

“Mustang!” Berthold bleats. 

Riza clutches the bundle and watches as he turns his back and leaves, descending the porch steps, tall and proud. Berthold glowers ahead of her. They watch until Roy Mustang’s silhouette disappears down their lane and into the dark. 

Berthold pulls the door shut with a heavy slam and brushes past Riza again to the rarely-used parlor next to the front door. There, he throws himself into an old, dilapidated armchair facing the windows. 

“What are you doing?” she asks flatly. 

“Keeping watch,” he replies. “Can’t have him sneaking back so you can let him in, can I?”

“You’re absurd,” she admonishes. “What’s he supposed to do? It’s the middle of the night!”

“There are late trains to Central,” Berthold says. “And even if there aren’t, it’s not my problem.”

Riza huffs and crosses her arms, an exact mirror to Berthold’s pose. 

“This is ridiculous.”

“He deliberately went against me.”

“He doesn’t deserve this.” 

“You’re blinded, Riza. That boy is a poison, and he’s tricked you.”

“I know him; he wouldn’t do that. I…” She looks away, blushing.

Berthold scoffs. “You what? _Love him?_ You’re a child, Elizabeth! What could you possibly know about love?”

“How old were you?” she snaps suddenly. “When you and mom agreed to wait for one another?” Her eyes are shining. Berthold’s mouth snaps shut. “She told me, you know. I know the whole story.”

His grimace deepens. “It’s not the same. Your mother and I--”

“Were 16 and 17 years old, right?” she says. “Roy and I are older than both of you, and we were only--”

“Were only on the cusp of something very inappropriate when I walked in, Elizabeth! Under my roof!” he yells. “I’ve not had my fill of reprimanding you, Little Bird, so watch your mouth. I am very disappointed in both of you.”

Riza throws her hands in the air. “Is it so bad to feel something for him?”

“Elizabeth,” he sighs. “Roy was an alchemy student under my care, not your live-in boyfriend. Do you understand how that looks? It’s inappropriate. If he were a friend in town, it would have been different.” He pinches his temple. “Believe me, I know how it feels to get swept up like that. But this is not the same.”

“All we did was kiss,” Riza mutters. Berthold’s disbelieving guffaw makes her angry. So in retaliation, she bites back, “ _You_ convinced mom to leave her fiance.”

Berthold’s withering look stings. Riza covers her mouth in shame. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”

“It wasn’t,” he says. “But I forgive you.”

Riza ambles into the room and approaches his left side. The ends of the tattoo peek out of his sleeve.

“Are we going to talk about that?” she asks softly, gesturing to his arm. 

Berthold sinks further into the chair. “Another day. It’s late,” he says. “Go to bed, Elizabeth.”

It’s been a long day. She hangs her head and slinks off to bed, leaving Berthold alone with his thoughts. Thoughts that have already begun to sow doubt. He replays his last memory of Roy Mustang, skulking down the lane, and out of their lives.

* * *

The house is quiet and lonely without Roy. Still, Riza tries to get on with life and not wallow.

That’s not to say she doesn’t. The Sunday hours that she and Roy used to spend in the pasture behind the house are now wasted in his old room, under the blankets of his lumpy bed that she refuses to wash. Every stitch of them smells like him. When she closes her eyes very tight, she can almost feel his arms around her. 

She’s careful not to let her father see how much she misses him, though she’d be surprised if he didn’t know after everything. He’s transparent, too, and Riza notices the way he grimaces at the empty spaces that Roy used to occupy: his seat at the kitchen table. His spot on the sofa. His desk in the study. Even if he won’t admit it, Riza knows Roy was a good pupil, and there’s nothing wrong with missing his contribution if nothing else. 

She wears the dress shirts he’d given her to bed. They’re soft and worn, and they make her feel close to him. 

They exchange letters. Phone calls aren’t covert enough, and she almost always checks the mail first. She feels giddy whenever she receives one, stealing away to his old room to read them and write back as soon as he can. He’s starting at the military academy soon; at present, he is residing with his aunt again in Central. 

_She yelled at me for an hour when I came home,_ he writes. _I never told you, but she warned me to stay away from you. I couldn’t. Something always told me you were going to be important._

 _I miss you,_ he always says. Those words in his script make her chest tighten. She'd stare at them for hours if she could.

She writes back with news from town. She tells him of her studies, of her friends, of her father. She shares gossip from her grandmother, stories from her grandfather. Anything to fill the pages, and by extension the void in her heart. She tells him of the schools she plans to tour in Central and East City.

She still has the test exam booklet that she had helped Roy study from that night. Sometimes, she flips through it idly and quizzes herself.

She’s looking forward to the upcoming summer at her grandparents’ when her father abruptly cancels it, her punishment for sneaking around his back with Roy. She would stay put right here in Heidel. 

Despite her anger, she understands, which makes her feel even guiltier than before. Roy is in Central with his aunt until he starts at the academy in the fall. She wants to see him, but on t the right terms - not against her father’s wishes. So she takes her punishment and suffers through it with gritted teeth.

Riza does the one thing she knows with certainty would get her through a summer practically alone: studying. She has her eye on graduating from school a semester early, and she knows she will pass the early entrance exams if she puts in the work. 

And work, she does. Berthold tries something of a truce and offers her Roy’s desk in the corner of his study. They work in tandem throughout the summer, Berthold tackling more research and outdoor practice with flame alchemy, and Riza burying her nose in books and turning her palms silver under the graphite’s rub. 

She sets her sights on East University’s linguistics program. Its reputation precedes itself, and Berthold is happy to take a break from their work over the summer for a tour. The trip is an equalizer for them and coaxes them back into their regular rapport that had been stolen amidst their frustrations with each other. It’s something they both need. Berthold has his daughter back. Riza isn’t angry with him anymore. 

When she passes her early entrance exams, though, it’s bittersweet. January will come quickly.

Fall rolls around and with it, Riza’s last semester of secondary school. Eventually, Roy’s letters lose their frequency, and she isn’t surprised. He’d started at the military academy in late August, and from her grandfather’s stories, she knows it’ll be grueling. Still, he makes a point to write when he can. 

_She sleeps in his room less and less. Eventually, she has to wash the sheets._

She and her father talk about flame alchemy, about the tattoo. She understands the need to protect the world from its danger, from its volatility. But she doesn’t quite understand the medium, though she acknowledges her father’s autonomy in the situation. She’s just glad she’d ever felt compelled to participate in something so rash and permanent. 

His mental health is steadily improving, too, which fills her with relief. It was the thing that scared her most about leaving for East City. He’d disclosed to her on the way home from her college visit about seeing the array everywhere, and sometimes even seeing apparitions of her mother. It troubled her enough to reach out to their family doctor and ask questions on her father’s behalf, and it troubled the family doctor enough to recommend a colleague in the city who could help. She just hoped that he’d keep up with monthly appointments after she left. 

_She doesn’t wear his dress shirts much anymore. They hang in the back of her closet._

As always, there is news of Ishval, just as there has been for the last several years. But the more she learns, the more it scares her. Reports of new conflicts trickle in and die down, trickle in and die down. Everyone in town has a different opinion. Some think Amestris is misunderstood and the Ishvalans ought to save themselves by falling in line. Others wish Amestrians had never set foot there. Others argue heavily of Amestris’ crimes and condemn their country's leaders for enabling it. More are worried about deployments of their friends and family in the military, of what that means for their country, so frequently embroiled in one conflict or another. 

She keeps meaning to ask Roy about it, but her responses are slowing. She no longer rushes upstairs to read his letters in private. Sometimes it’s a day or more before she’ll open the envelope.

_The weather is getting colder. Missing him is getting easier._

She graduates as planned from secondary school at the end of the year, with her father watching on proudly as the headmistress signs her diploma into being. He’s so thrilled for her, and she realizes at the end of the day as she’s reading Roy’s latest letter that as much as it warms her heart to hear his congratulations, as special as it was in its way, it meant more to make her father smile. He was her biggest fan from the very beginning. 

So she spends one last winter solstice with her father, quiet and special, just the two of them. And weeks later, they’re on the road to East City, their car packed to the brim with luggage and school things. When she hugs him goodbye, she doesn’t hold back her tears. She stands on the sidewalk and waves as he drives away. She already misses him.

Alone in the car, Berthold cries and prays it gets easier.

They’ll get through this new phase in life. Apart, but always together.

* * *

Hawkeye manor creaks and whines at every movement. He’d never noticed how creepy it could be until a winter storm inspires ghostlike footsteps to patter through the house. Being alone is strange like that.

Riza calls and Riza writes. Riza reminds him to keep his appointments with his doctor in Central. The doctor in Central is smart and thoughtful with good ideas, but a lot of those ideas involve getting out of the house and making new friends. He agrees to try one new social activity every week to see if he likes it. Riza likes that idea and reminds him that people in town would be happy to see him. 

He agrees but he hates it. He hates getting dressed up with the weight of anxiety heavy in his chest, wishing he could just stay home. He thinks people will stare at him. He thinks people will whisper about him. He thinks it’s odd to go out alone, even though he’s never had a problem with it before. 

But before, he could conduct his business and come home. The point of the exercise is to try new things, meet new people. And after all these years, and everyone he’s become acquainted with, he still feels like the person in town who shouldn’t be there. Ava and Riza and Roy were adored. He was tolerated by extension of them. Who would want to befriend an old grump like him?

It’s during one of these spiraling mental montages that he’s a hair’s breadth away from picking up the phone and canceling the rest of his appointments with his Central doctor. But to his surprise, as his hand reaches the handle, it begins to ring. He picks it up instantly, expecting to hear the voice of God on the other end with some life-changing advice for how uncanny the timing is. 

Instead, he gets Roy Mustang.

* * *

On a frigid winter day, Roy Mustang arrives at the Hawkeye home at Berthold’s invitation. 

His begrudging invitation, he reminds himself.

Roy has come to apologize. Roy has come to bury the hatchet. Roy has come to ask him a question. 

Berthold frets over this mysterious question that simply had to happen in person. He’d phoned old Grumman already; did he know what this hotshot was on about? Did he share something? The old man didn’t know. Sure he didn’t! 

The way Berthold sees it, there are only two reasons Roy would come back to Heidel to ask him a question in person: he wants to learn flame alchemy, or he wants to marry his daughter. Which is all fine and dandy. Maybe he could ask for the house and the car, too. And slap him in the face while he was at it.

Neither option is particularly appealing. But, Berthold can’t help but be a little intrigued, because Berthold has been going to therapy and Berthold has agreed to be open to making amends. Still, he plays the potential conversations out in his mind, and he is struggling to see an outcome that veers beyond either outright rejection or uncomfortable silence, followed by rejection. But maybe...

Maybe there is a third option that includes none of the above. Maybe he won’t end this day hating Roy Mustang more than he did before.

Roy seems keen to catch up with him. When he steps into the house, he’s dressed to the nines in his dress blues. To Berthold’s surprise, the first thing out of his mouth is not a disparaging comment about the uniform. Rather the opposite. 

“I haven’t seen that uniform in years,” he says. “My father was in the military. Did Riza ever tell you?”

“She mentioned before,” Roy replies. “A Briggsman?” 

“That’s right. Until he transferred to East City and met my mother. But Hawkeyes were native to the civilian areas around Fort Briggs for generations.”

It’s...odd. Berthold finds himself sharing. Sharing about everything. Sharing about his father. His mother. Master Kuo and his family. His travels as a journeyman alchemist. 

About Ava. 

“I thought she was going to fall right off of that lip and break her legs in the shrubs,” he says, followed by an uncharacteristic guffaw. “And when she’d insisted we get married right away? I had no idea it was because she knew her father was going to put out a warrant for my arrest. For kidnapping!”

“General Grumman would have done that?” Roy asks incredulously, tears pricking his eyes as he laughs.

“Would have? Oh, my boy, he did it! He withdrew it after Ava called to tell him we were married - by choice, of course - but believe you me, the cavalry was waiting for the word.” He chuckles. “And that’s the story of how I was almost a fugitive.”

“The General seems like a different person from the man you describe,” Roy muses, rubbing his chin.

Berthold shrugs. “He was a different man back then. Losing Ava changed him. It changed all of us.”

Roy smiles sadly. “I wish I could have met her.”

Berthold sighs. “You know...I do, too. I think…” He bites his lip, horrified by what he’s about to say. “I think...Ava would have liked you.”

Ava doesn’t come around much anymore. He hasn’t glimpsed her for more than a few seconds in years. It makes him feel better about his progress, but when he talks fondly of their life together, he wishes he could look over Roy’s shoulder and see her apparition smiling back. 

But his doctor’s voice in his head reminds him that that was never really her. It’s sadder to realize what he really wants. He wishes she were sitting next to him, growing old with him. Holding his hand while they visited with the young, bright-eyed cadet.

Berthold rises from his chair and gestures for Roy to follow him. He leads him into the kitchen, where he replenishes their coffees.

“Now,” Berthold says. “You indicated over the phone that you had something to ask me.”

Roy runs a hand through his slickened hair. It seems to be a nervous habit of his; he’d been doing it consistently since he’d taken his hat off. 

“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

Swallowing hard, Roy takes a moment to compose himself. He stares out into the yard from the kitchen window, his eyes tracking across the familiar landscape. The garage, the driveway. The garden plot. The woods. The shed. The woodpile jutting out from the porch. 

“I know it may seem strange to come all the way out here,” he begins. “But, I have felt remorse for the way our time together ended last year. It’s bothered me ever since.” He fidgets a bit with his coat sleeve. “I don’t regret joining the military. I believe I’ve made the right choice, and I believe in my future. But, I’m beginning to understand why you disliked it so much. There’s no such thing as “perfect”, and the military is anything but.”

He turns to Berthold now. “I see how someone could easily fall into corruption in this world. But sir, I promise that I went into the military with pure intentions. I still have a plan to change the world with alchemy. I still intend to serve and protect the people. To do good. Be the change.”

Roy sighs. Berthold watches him carefully. “I’m getting off-track,” he says. “What I want to ask you, sir, is...well. I want to apologize. Earnestly, I am deeply sorry for the pain that I’ve caused.”

He pauses. “And, I was wondering if I could ask for your forgiveness as well.” He continues, boldened. “For not being honest with you. For making a decision I knew you’d hate and continuing under your tutelage anyway. I knew I was doing and took advantage of your kindness. And…for putting your and Riza’s reputation in jeopardy.”

His shoulders decompress while Berthold stares at him hard. 

“I should have known that a relationship with Riza, while I lived here, would reflect poorly on both of you. I promise you that what I felt for Riza was real and true. But I realize now I should have waited until after I’d left to pursue her. So, I ask your forgiveness for that as well.”

“In truth,” he continues. “I didn’t know she’d become so special to me. She’s...remarkable.”

“Yes,” Berthold agrees. It’s the first thing he’s commented on in a long while. 

Roy sniffs. “Anyway. I don’t...you don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. And to hear me out. And if you ever feel like writing, or calling someday, I...I’d love to hear from you. That’s all.”

Berthold was expecting something. It wasn’t this. 

He and Roy were birds of a feather. He imbibed the very alchemical principles that Berthold lived and died by as a young man. The concept of being an alchemist for the people, doing good. He glances down at his hand, the burn scars from years ago still silvery pink and raw against his pale winter skin. Somewhere along the line, he’d lost that. And he’d been vain enough to judge Roy for wanting the things he wanted, achieved differently. 

And Berthold...hadn’t he put Ava’s reputation in danger when they’d eloped? Hadn’t people whispered behind their back for years and hissed awful things about her virtue for leaving her fiance for him? Hadn’t he insisted none of it mattered so long as they loved each other? Hadn’t that been half his motivation for moving them into the middle of nowhere, so no one would talk about them?

Roy has more character at his young age than Berthold has even now. It’s sobering to be in his presence, and he realizes abruptly that forgiveness...Roy didn’t have to ask. 

“I do forgive you,” Berthold admits. He closes his eyes and nods curtly. “I do, Roy."

Roy beams at him and nods. He holds out his hand and the men shake, strong and sure like they had the first time they met.

“You don’t know what that means to hear it,” Roy says. “Thank you.”

To Berthold’s surprise, Roy gets ready to leave. He begins to bid him goodbye when Berthold interrupts him. 

“Wait,” he says, stopping him. “That was it? You came to visit, and to apologize?” 

Roy’s expression is puzzled when he turns around. “Yes, sir. It’s been on my mind for some time.”

“Nothing...else? Nothing about Riza?”

The young man blushes, the bashfulness overtaking his previous confidence. 

“Oh, sir. I couldn’t. But I do--want to,” he stutters, his blush and smile growing so large he forces himself to look away. “But we’re young, and...I couldn’t--not yet. The time isn’t right.”

Berthold closes his eyes and nods. And nods. And nods some more. 

Roy, to his credit, does not say anything more. He simply waits until Berthold is ready to speak. He fixes his amber eyes on his former pupil and sighs very, very deeply. 

“The snow begins to thaw at the end of March,” he grumbles. “Take leave and come back then. You will learn flame alchemy from me.”

Roy can’t speak, so he salutes at him in place of words. 

“And Mustang,” says Berthold. He fixes him with a dark glare. “Do not make me regret this.”

* * *

Time with Roy has done something to him, Berthold realizes. After the young man leaves, Berthold goes into town. He doesn’t feel anxious. He doesn’t feel panicked. He is not worried. He walks down the street and nods to a few passersby. He strolls past his favored shops and pops into a few. He chats with the shopkeeps. He buys a few odds and ends.

_Do something new._

Across from the apothecary is Irene’s Diner. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. A town-favored greasy spoon. He doesn’t remember ever being here before. In all his years. 

He steps inside and seats himself at the counter. A stout, middle-aged lady pours him a cup of coffee and takes his lunch order. She is nice. Friendly. 

He likes the idle chatter swirling in the air. The radio plays old tunes he remembers from his boyhood. The bustle from the wait staff and line cooks behind the counter energizes him. The store is bright with cheerful colors and lots of sunlight.

If he closes his eyes he’s sure his mind would recreate a scene much like this one, a lifetime ago in East City. He’d be in a booth with his mother and father after church on a Sunday, doodling on a children’s coloring page with big, thick crayons. His father would order a savory plate of biscuits and sausage gravy for himself, and his mother would get stacks of buttermilk pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream for them to share, and a side of scrapple. The very idea makes his mouth water.

He is interrupted by his reminiscing by a shift behind him. An older gentleman ambles in slowly, assisted by a cane, and seats himself a few stools down from Berthold. He carries a newspaper and gives Berthold a friendly nod. 

“Usual?” asks the waitress, and the man nods.

“Thanks, Irene.”

Irene of Irene’s Diner. She puts in the man’s order, then flashes Berthold a smile as she turns to grab his order from the line cook. 

“Enjoy, dear,” she says. 

“Thank you.”

He eats in silence, chewing slowly and taking in the diner’s liveliness, allowing his fond childhood memories to layer over it in his imagination. None of the scenarios he’d feared were coming to pass. No one was staring or whispering. He might as well be invisible. 

He feels a nudge on his wrist, and when he glances over he notices his seat neighbor has slid part of his newspaper over to him. 

“Sports, entertainment, and cartoons,” he says. “I’m not much for that.”

Berthold snaps up the paper and unfolds it. The first headline he reads seems vapid and uninteresting. “Me either.”

But they read in silence, and eventually, they trade their paper sections again while Berthold continues to pick at his meal. Irene comes by twice more to refill his coffee. Eventually, his seat neighbor rises and plunks his hat on his head. He folds the paper up under his arm and stands with his cane. 

“You’re Elizabeth Hawkeye’s old man,” he says. “I’m Wilt Schwartz. My grandson, Elliot, went to school with her.”

“Ah,” says Berthold. “Yes, I remember Elliot. How is he?”

“Flunked his last grade,” Mr. Schwartz grunts. 

“Mm.”

“Keh.”

Berthold is amused to recall that his conversation with Elliot as a boy went similarly. Even with their generational differences, Berthold can recognize the similarities between the elder Schwartz and his grandson, all the way down to the way he pulls his hat down tighter on his head. 

“Bye, Rene,” Mr. Schwartz calls back. “See you tomorrow, Bert.”

Berthold grimaces but doesn't have the chance to respond before Mr. Schwartz has shuffled out the door, surprisingly spry and mobile even with his cane. When Irene comes back with his receipt, he finds that he’s so distracted by his new nickname that he forgets not to return her friendly smile.

Bert. 

That won’t do. That won’t do at all. He’ll have to come back tomorrow and correct him.

* * *

Roy takes leave in April and comes to study flame alchemy from the planes of Berthold’s flame array tattoo. 

Berthold had recognized Roy’s inherent talent during their first meeting in Madam Christmas’ bar. During his tenure as an apprentice and journeyman, he’d been a natural. This difficult, dangerous new brand of power is no different; Roy wields it like he was born to do it.

Roy has the kind of mind that will surpass his master’s one day; Berthold sees this plainly when Roy pulls flames from the air that first day with ease, and transitions into pinpointing by the end of the first week. This boy - this man - is a rarely-found talent, just short of a prodigy. And his charisma and confidence, his natural disposition, will be as much an asset to him as his alchemy. 

For the first time, when Roy mentions the military, Berthold does not sneer. He’s shocked to find himself warming up to the notion, to Roy’s dream. Not that Berthold would ever take the same path, he’s alright with Roy doing it.

He’s bought into it. Unbelievable. Impossible.

Then, Riza finishes her finals early and comes home to join her father in Heidel. For the first time, he sees their relationship through eyes unclouded.

And Berthold is overcome with a sense of embarrassment for not realizing how close they were this whole time. His obliviousness dissolved, he sees their affection rooted in every look, every action. As such, he doesn’t have to see Riza to know she’s near. Roy’s attention is completely captured by her, and it’s not lascivious or untoward. Roy meant what he admitted to Berthold; he is in awe of her. He hangs onto every little thing she does. In his eyes, she might as well be the queen she’s named for.

Riza's attentions are more subtle, more restrained, like when she was younger. But that doesn’t mean she is immune to Roy and his easy way, his kindness. Their behavior sails along with the undercurrent of emotional intimacy, like they’d been together long enough. It makes Berthold wonder, truly, how long this had been going on.

Berthold sees for himself the carefulness in which Roy sprinkles cinnamon on top of her coffee before he brings it to her. He sees the thoughtfulness in which Riza selects first aid items from their kit to fix up their burns. He notices when Roy changes the oil in the car just before Riza goes to do it herself. He sees when Riza brings home a new book that Roy had been rambling about the night before and slips it into his things. 

He sees it - or rather overhears it - one day while they’re talking on the porch sitting side by side. The front door is wide open to let the scent of summer seep into the house. Roy is sharing his dream with her, his goals for her alchemy when he trails off. He must think himself foolish. But Riza bumps his shoulder, and she tells him with a smile, just how wonderful she thinks his dream is.

* * *

In May, Roy’s leave concludes and he returns to the military with a mind full of new wonders and a case full of white clothes with red stitching. In a stark contrast from the last time he left his teacher as a pupil, Berthold personally drives him to the train station. They depart on better terms than ever, with a handshake and tipped caps. Soon after, Berthold receives a letter of gratitude from Major Roy Mustang, the newly minted Flame Alchemist. His dream is just starting, and the world is bright.

In August, Riza takes the train back to East City for her upcoming semester. She’s been quiet all summer, contemplative and observant, and Berthold finds this curious newness about her to be a sign of maturity. He’s glad she seems to be thinking critically about every part of her life, from her education to her future to the people she allows close to her. She’s the kind of person he trusts to make her own way without much direction. She’s steadfast, solid, and true. She kisses his cheek and promises to call. 

In September, headlines about the Ishvalan Civil War reemerge with gusto. It’s the thing that’s been omnipresent for the last many years in a nation whose constant entanglement in some kind of conflict has left the people apathetic. News ebbs and flows from the front lines in an irregularity that feels intentional. The military-controlled media clues them in on just enough, but hides the exposition methodically, expertly, deviously. Now, conflict is heating up, and they can’t hide it anymore.

It’s the thing that Roy Mustang has been waiting for. His time is coming - he can taste it. He hasn’t yet received deployment orders, but it’s as inevitable as the end of time. Berthold can only imagine what ideas the young major will bring to the table. Maybe through his leadership, he can be an influence. Maybe, someone as ambitious as Roy Mustang will be the change. It just might be the beginning of the end in Ishval. Peace at last.

“And that’s why I feel like it’s time,” Roy tells him in a rush over the phone. His ambition is electrifying, and Berthold grins in anticipation. “I don’t know when I’ll ship out, but I know it’s coming. And I can’t go without asking you for your blessing, sir. I know what I want more than ever. I want to marry your daughter, if she’ll have me.”

Berthold would be tickled to have Roy as a son-in-law. But he can’t stop himself from teasing, from making the young man sweat a little. He recalls a story his mother told him when he was a young boy, about how his maternal grandfather had forced his father to wait three days before he’d delegate an answer on his daughter’s hand. Berthold liked the repetition of it, and he thinks his father would find it amusing if he were around to hear of it. So he tells Roy to wait, to have patience. And in three days, he’ll call back with an answer. 

He’ll give his blessing, and his daughter will be engaged to a fine young man. They’ll marry, and their futures will be bright. They’ll live a long, happy life together. It’s everything Berthold and Ava had wanted for their little girl. 

Every time Riza reaches a milestone in her life, Berthold’s pride is matched by grief. Grief that Ava was robbed of seeing their daughter this way. Berthold hangs up the phone after his phone call with Roy, and even though Ava’s been gone for more than a decade, he laughs and strides into the parlor as if he’s expecting to see her sitting there, blinking back at him with a curious grin. She’d ask him what was so funny, and he’d tell her all about it. 

It hurts to think about the people missing out on Riza’s life. Berthold’s departed parents have been on his mind more and more lately, and he wonders what they would make of all this. To be sure, his father would be most impressed by Roy’s path into the military, his mother intrigued at his academic prowess. They’d be enamored by Riza, a mix of the both of them in personality if there ever was, so thoughtful, smart, and beautiful. Berthold tries his hardest not to let self-pity seep into his happiness; it doesn’t do well to wallow at how unfair life can be.

And yes, life is unfair. Life is unfair because it lulls you into a false sense of security before it blindsides you. 

And Berthold’s blind side, as it has always been, is Riza. Riza, who he thought was happily back at East University. Riza, who he’d never known to question her own choices. Riza, who’d unknowingly taken Roy’s dream to heart and made it her own. Riza, who calls him the next day and informs him of three things: she has dropped out of school. She has enlisted in the military. She will be Cadet Hawkeye at the military academy in one week. 

And this, that she does not need to say aloud for him to already know: there is someone she needs to protect.

There is no one in this world who knows Berthold better. So when Berthold whispers “Okay. Thank you for telling me.” and quietly hangs up the phone, she understands that this response says more than words ever could. It’s resignation. It’s understanding. It’s... 

Because Riza is an adult and Riza is capable of making her own choices, and Berthold cannot bring himself to be angry with her. But he sees where this path will take her, even if she doesn’t yet. Ishval is waiting and Ishval is bloody and Ishval needs more soldiers to ruin.

So he calls Major Roy Mustang, that reckless young man whose world-changing purview has successfully influenced a young woman whose future was already determined. He calls Roy Mustang, who is anxiously awaiting an answer to a rather important question. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to call so soon, sir,” comes his breathless voice. “How can I help you?”

“Ask me again,” Berthold mutters flatly. 

Roy clears his throat. “Come again, sir?”

“I said,” Berthold repeats, and his voice is low and full of gravel. “Ask me again. What you wanted to know the other day.”

Roy breathes very deeply. He can sense trouble; maybe that’s why his question is shaky, less sure than it was before. “Master Hawkeye. May I have your blessing to marry your daughter?”

Berthold pauses for several agonizing seconds. 

“No,” he says. And he hangs up the phone.

* * *

In December, Riza makes a name for herself, just like Berthold knows would happen. She is predictably good at almost everything, and the military knows when they’ve got someone of her caliber in their clutches. She is selected as the Amestrian military academy’s top student, and the best sharpshooter they’ve seen in decades. She is as good as marked for combat, and Berthold is numb when months later, Riza receives her orders: she and a squad of fellow snipers will be joining a battalion in Ishval.

June is hot and June is bloody. June is the month when the Fuhrer stands up in front of the people and signs Executive Order #3066 into being, and tells them that this is the way to peace. This is the way to protect the people. This is how we save Amestris. 

State alchemists will go to Ishval and state alchemists will exterminate. The Flame Alchemist is among their ranks and sends up flames that kill instead of protect. Destroy instead of serve. Soldiers will follow orders or lose their lives to the firing squad sworn to protect them. 

In September, Riza Hawkeye’s ghost comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm excited to hear what you think of this chapter! It was a big one and focused on a much shorter period of time than the last two, and it was SO fun to write. 
> 
> What a treat it was to explore Berthold and his duality. His role as a father is his very being, but he's still the inventor of flame alchemy, I and wanted to touch on what an obsession with his work could do to his life. Canonically, his addiction to it was his ruin (along with many other character flaws), and I'd be remiss if I didn't incorporate the potential for that ruin to be ever-present as he toes that line. To have him acknowledge that he has a problem, but for that mental battle to follow him around while he assures those around him that he's just fine, was a hard part to write but it felt important.
> 
> This fic is set in the late 1890s/early 1900s, which enforces some of the behaviors we may look at and scratch our heads. Mental health resources are scarce, but I still wanted to present that as an option for Berthold. And then there's Roy asking for permission to marry Riza. If this were a modern-day story, this conversation would have gone differently! I do believe, though, that teenage horniness transcends time periods and if I have an opportunity to get Royai to make out I'm gonna take it.
> 
> Next time: the heroes of Ishval \\\ catching up to canon events \\\ the final chapter


	4. I’m A Goner; Somebody Catch My Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heroes of Ishval return. The Promised Day comes for all. Berthold alone. Life goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, here! Let's get into it!
> 
> Note :) the :) rating :) change :)
> 
> (Spoilers for those who don't care for mature content: it's not till the end of the story and it involves uhhh some shower canoodling)

_Hooray, the heroes of Ishval! Who would have thought that the Flame Alchemist and the Hawk’s Eye would be able to cite Heidel as the location for their humble beginnings? And Berthold Hawkeye, for all his oddities and eccentricities, is a hero in his own right - how wrong we were about him! Who would have thought that such a reclusive man would raise such formidable young soldiers? Bravo to him, and to the heroes of Ishval, for ridding the Ishvalan scourge from the world! Amestris can finally rest well!_

* * *

_Damn it all,_ Berthold curses _. Damn the military, those guileless dogs, for starting this whole mess in the first place. Damn Grumman and his war stories and his praise for that god-forsaken state alchemy program. Damn him for bringing Roy Mustang into his home and damn Roy Mustang for corrupting his daughter and damn Riza for not knowing better. Damn it all. Damn flame alchemy. Damn himself and this bloody, worthless obsession._

_Ava. God, Ava, he cries, what have I done? I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this. Not for Riza, not for Roy, nor Amestris. This isn’t what I set out to do. What is the toll, now? How many blood-soaked lives have been incinerated because of the knowledge that sprung from my hands and mind and stains my skin? What has my ambition wrought on my soul? On theirs?_

_Will I ever see you again, my love? You, so pure and kind surely wait for me in paradise. I’m not worthy to join you, not anymore. I can’t bear the thought of you, how heartbroken you must be to see me become the catalyst. Yes, war is inevitable, my love, and the ego of man fuels fires and carnage that has happened before we were born and it’ll burn after. But Ishval._

_Ishval, a crematorium. I gave them the Flame Alchemist. I gave them the Hawk’s Eye. I could have stopped them, don’t you think? I should have exiled that blasted apprentice as soon as I heard the first whispers of state exams and dress blues. I should have sent Riza away. Why didn’t I stop them? Why didn’t I stop them? Why didn’t I--_

_Riza. Oh, God, Ava, I am haunted at the thought. Our Elizabeth in the desert with a rifle over her shoulder. I want to believe in my heart of hearts that our sweet girl with flowers in her hair would never be - but she is, isn’t she? Loyal and brave to the end, dutiful. They’ve made a military dog out of our girl. They did this to her. He did this to her._

_What do I do, Ava? If there was ever a time Riza needed you - that I needed you - it’s now. I loathe the array I embedded into my skin. I want to burn it off; I deserve to suffer for what horror I've brought upon this world._

_I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do._

* * *

The military is generous. They grant Riza three months of leave to recuperate, to get her mind and body right. She hadn’t even finished the academy, but legend precedes her. 19 years old and a war veteran, the youngest sharpshooter in Amestrian military history, a _hero_. 

_Murderer_ , her reflection mouths back to her. _Angel of death._

Roy has been calling the barracks for her every day, but she can’t bring herself to answer. She can’t picture his face anymore without seeing it layered in soot and grime, seeing those ignition gloves with the flame array stitched into them like a bloody grin. Once upon a time, she thought she’d marry that boy. She’s not sure she can stand the sight of him now. She wants to tell him to leave her alone, but that would mean hearing his voice, and she doesn’t think she can without getting sick.

Sick. What’s sick is that she still loves him, even after everything he’s done. After everything _she’s_ done, because as much as she’d like to scream at him and pound her fists into his chest, it would just be a projection of endless guilt that lingers behind her teeth like a post-nasal drip. She contemplates their place now, what their lives will be, on the train ride back to Heidel. Thinking of her distant future distracts her from the near future: going home. Because as much as it scares her to picture her return to the academy, she’s even more scared of what her father will say. 

He tried to warn her. And she was so blinded by her own ambition, an ambition that existed outside of Roy Mustang, that she refused to heed his warnings. She thought him a stubborn fool, jaded and sour, but he knew the truth the entire time, didn’t he? It’s why he never gave a second thought to becoming state-certified, even when money was tight and they had to rely on their neighbors for help. Why didn’t she listen? Why didn’t she listen? Why didn’t she - 

Will he welcome her home? She can only imagine how furious he must be. He’s a solitary man, indeed, but he’s not ignorant. 

He was right all along. And her wise, patient father, so devoted to her, encouraged her to choose her own path. All because he trusted her, believed in her, loved her. And this is how she repays him. 

But love is patient and love is kind. Love is Hawkeye manor and its peeling paint and iron gates and dusty lane. Love is her garden, alive and thriving, and her favorite flowers in the window boxes. Love is her mother’s car polished and shining in the driveway. 

Love is her father's face appearing in the window and opening the door before she even reaches the porch. Love is his rushing toward her with no scolding nor reprimand on his lips, just pulling her into his arms so, so tight. Love is quiet while she wails into his chest and screams that she’s sorry. Love is a gentle hand carding through her cropped hair, a cup of tea, and a warm bed. 

Love is a forgiveness she believes she’ll never deserve, but she receives anyway. 

* * *

“What do we do when we fall, Elizabeth?”

It’s the question he’s asked her every day since she came home, and every day she neglects to answer. She doesn’t have one. Not the one he wants anyway because she’s not in a place that would promote any kind of optimism. When she thinks of falling the way she has, she doesn’t see the phoenix rising from the ashes. She thinks of how a kill shot would drop a body. When they fell, they didn’t get back up. 

She wakes up screaming most nights. It’s the scariest thing Berthold’s experienced in a long while. The first time it happens, he thinks she’s tried to hurt herself and he flies to her room without his dressing robe over his short-sleeved nightshirt. She’s too hysterical to notice the bandages wound around his left arm. Compared to her pain, he barely notices the burn anymore. 

The night terrors are so frequent that he’s taken to unfurling a bedroll in front of her door after she’s gone to bed. Sometimes he sits atop it with a candle and book; other times he’s able to drift into a fitful sleep before she starts screaming. Sometimes she’s still asleep when the terrors begin and she wails for her mother, so sad and broken that Berthold has trouble staying strong for her. 

He wants to tell her that it’s not her fault, but he knows she won’t see it that way. He’s come down from his anger enough to recognize that Riza - and Roy, even - went into the military with pure intentions. Even the war had some misguided semblances of propriety before the genocide order was handed down. He gets her to talk a little about the military academy, of her studies, and he has to admit her classes on politics, leadership and diplomacy did sound quite interesting. In peacetime, she’d probably have graduated and taken up clerical work at Central command. Or went into teaching, or gone into the reserves while pursuing university again. She might have never seen combat if the timing hadn’t been so unlucky. 

He sees her as a pawn, not a murderer. She didn’t have a choice. She insists, though that she always had a choice - even if to refuse was to be executed. Berthold is stricken at the idea of it. He comes to understand why she is so inconsolable. Comply or die. Lose your humanity or lose your life.

He gets her to talk to the doctor in Central on the phone. It’s the most she can manage, but it’s hard. She won’t leave the house, not even for fresh air. He doesn’t know what else he can do for her, and it makes him feel useless.

What do we do when we fall?

She doesn't breathe a word of Roy Mustang, but he can tell she misses him. She stares at his designated chair at the kitchen table where they’d spent countless mealtimes making eyes at each other. She lets the screen door swing wide when she enters the house as if expecting him to be right behind her with an armful of firewood or a bag of groceries. He finds newspapers with pictures and stories of the Flame Alchemist crumbled and stuffed into the trash. 

Despite his better judgment, Berthold has half a mind to ring Madam Christmas to see if she knows how to reach him. But as it happens, he doesn’t have to...because a week before Riza’s leave is up, who turns up at their front door but Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang?

He looks like hell. And the expression on the boy’s gaping maw when Riza slams the front door in his face is so pitiful that Berthold _almost_ feels bad for scoffing at him. 

Riza storms off, stomping up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door so hard it rattles the house. Berthold very much wants to perch by the window and watch as Roy slinks back down the lane with his tail between his legs, but that young man is still knocking quietly at the door whispering his daughter’s name in the most pathetic way. It prompts Berthold, with a great roll of his eyes, to open the door for that sad, simpering idiot and usher him in. 

It is awkward. Berthold tries to imagine what Ava would do (the right thing, always), and while Roy settles into his old seat at the table Berthold clambers around the kitchen to make tea. He spoons too many jasmine pearls into the strainer and taps his foot impatiently when the water doesn’t heat up fast enough. Then he remembers that the faster the tea is done the sooner he has to talk _nicely_ and try to be _patient_ and _comforting_ with this ninny, so he dials the stovetop down to its lowest setting.

He is struggling to find a teacup without a chip or stain on it. He wonders briefly if it would be rude to try to make an excuse out of the teacups that would let him go into town. Except Roy would try to come with him, most likely. So he’s stuck with him. But Berthold’s turned back is not a deterrent for Roy Mustang, who is ready to start bearing his soul. 

“I don’t blame her for being angry with me,” Roy wallows. “I’m angry with me.”

 _Wait till you hear why I’m angry with you,_ Berthold thinks darkly.

“I’ve hurt her,” he continues. His voice is soft and scared, like a little bird fallen from the nest.

The comparison makes Berthold’s brain sputter. _Or a vipe_ r _plucked from its den,_ he corrects. That sounds much better.

Roy clears his throat heavily. “I’ve come with an important question. A proposal.” Berthold freezes and whirls on him with wide eyes. Roy is staring intently at his folded hands and smiling slightly. “You see, I--”

Berthold pounds his fist onto the countertop, effectively cutting him off. “Did I just hear the word ‘proposal’ out of your mouth?” 

Roy’s mouth is agape while Berthold sees red. He stomps over to this entitled little puke and grabs him by the collar, bringing their faces very close together. 

“Mustang, if you ever say something that stupid to me again I’ll slap the words right out of your mouth. Don’t think I won’t hit a war hero because I will - and I’d do worse if it wouldn’t land me in jail.”

“Sir--”

“Now you listen to me! I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt but you’ve done my daughter a great disservice with your join-up nonsense. How you can show up here asking for her hand _again_ is beyond me! Well, the answer’s no, boy. And you’d do well to get the hell off my property before I kick your Fuhrer-loving ass all the way to Fort Briggs!”

Spittle peppers Roy’s petrified face. Berthold releases him and takes a small step back, privately pleased that he’s finally given the kid a piece of his mind. He crosses his arms and glares, daring him to argue. 

“Sir...I’ve misled you. I wasn’t asking for Riza’s hand.” _Again_ , Berthold’s mind supplies unhelpfully. “It’s nothing like that. I’m not...worthy of her. You know as well as I do that she deserves much, much more.”

It’s the most they’ve agreed on in years. Berthold inclines his head slightly, and Roy continues.

“I was actually here to ask her - I was hoping -” He pinches the bridge of his nose, and Berthold holds back an annoyed huff. _Get on with it then,_ he thinks. 

“The Ishvalan war of extermination was an abomination,” Roy says quietly. “I’m regretful of my part in it. So many of us are. Riza - we ran into each other on the front lines - she struggled very much. She holds herself personally accountable for every life she took.”

“Decent people tend to do that,” Berthold drawls. 

Roy nods solemnly, oblivious to the jab - or too guilt-ridden to defy it. “Yes. Yes, exactly. And those in power - those who called the shots during the war...they must be beyond evil. For their orders and for their lack of remorse. It’s despicable. It’s vile.”

“It’ll happen again.” 

Roy Mustang looks up with a fire in his eyes that makes Berthold take a step back. 

“It will,” he agrees. “Unless I can stop it. Sir, I have a few allies and a plan. And I need Riza’s help to do it. I need her to watch my back. Help me rise through the ranks so we can end this insanity before it gets worse. That’s why I’m here, what I’m offering. We’re taking this to the top.”

“Keh,” he scoffs. “What makes you think she’d want to watch your back after all this? What makes you think you deserve her help?”

The fire is doused. Roy sinks back into his chair, wilting. “I need her, sir. All the help I can get. But especially her. She’s...she is the only one I trust with such a thing.”

“She’s not a pawn, you know.”

At that, Roy smiles. “I know.” He pauses, then stands, folding his hands behind his back. “I don’t deserve any favors. I...I know that. But, would you tell her for me, sir? Of what I plan to do?”

Berthold realizes he must be going soft; he nods stiffly. But before he can get the words out, a sniffle takes them by surprise. They turn to find Riza leaning against the threshold, arms crossed and eyes puffy. 

Roy makes a move to go to her. “Riza, I--”

She holds up a hand and he stops in his tracks. 

“I’ll walk you out,” she says quietly and leads him to the door. 

The tea has finished brewing. Berthold pours himself a cup and leans against the countertop as he sips. From this vantage point, he can see their misshapen silhouettes through the tall frosted windows that bracket either side of the front door. Riza doesn’t move, and their words are muted, but he thinks he sees Roy place a hand on her shoulder.

They don’t linger for much longer. The door creaks and Riza has slipped inside while Roy’s outline trudges down the front steps. She leans heavily against the door and lets out a long sigh. 

“So?” Berthold prompts. 

Riza is quiet for a while, taking in deep, deep breaths the way the family doctor had instructed. Eventually, she pushes herself off the door frame and says, “I told him I’d think about it.”

He doesn’t push her any further, and her footsteps recede toward the staircase once again. Berthold meanders into the foyer and stops just at the foot of the stairs as she is rounding the landing toward her room.

He wants to call up to her but holds back. Her posture does not convey an openness. He sighs and resolves to let her process this however she needs to. He won’t push just yet.

* * *

She likes the fresh, cold air of winter. It’s the opposite of Ishval. 

Cold is a comfort. Solstice is upon them, and though she isn’t much in the celebrating mood, she likes watching the town come alive for the festivities. The outdoor holiday markets were a favorite tradition of hers as a child. Her mother would take her for the day while her father worked, and they’d explore together looking for the prettiest yule wreaths, sipping hot mulled cider and waiting for the sun to go down. 

The lights would transform the town square into a magical, glittering winterscape. They’d come home chilled to the bone and giddy with holiday cheer, their arms heavy with packages of fresh potato pancakes and cheesy käsespätzle and pork schnitzel. Her mother would buy lengths of knackwurst to put aside for the new year’s meal, served with sauerkraut. At the end of the night, Riza would sit between her parents in the den and read a holiday story while Berthold and Ava shared glasses of heady gluhwein by the fire.

On clear mornings like this one, Riza can see all the way into town. From the porch rocker, wrapped in a blanket and her steaming cup of coffee with cinnamon caught on the armrest, she watches. Decorations and preparations are unfurling like a flower. Cast iron poles are pitched to support the waves of baubly bistro lights, colorful dioramas assembled in all the storefronts; there are holly boughs and wreaths and trees as far as the eye can see. She can imagine Mr. Leitzel at the apothecary loading up crates of freshly clipped pine crowns, on his way to the primary school to share about their town’s traditions. 

“Every town celebrates differently,” he told their class many years ago. She remembered them so clearly even now; at six years old, she’d been entranced by his stories, soaking in the details like a sponge to recite at home later. “And some don’t celebrate at all. But Solstice is special to Heidel. No matter where you go, you can always come back. During Solstice, we welcome our family home.”

_Home._

Well, she’s certainly home. She’s been feeling good enough into town, and has accompanied her father a few times. She likes Irene’s diner and how her father has started up a friendship with Irene and Schwartz. They’re interesting and funny and get him out of his shell. 

But she doesn’t like the admiring, proud smiles that people send her way. She doesn’t like how she’s often thanked for her service to Amestris. Every time she feels like she’s having a good day, a better day, she’s reminded of what she is. What she’s done.

The people don’t seem to understand. Their mindless pride in their country blinds them, though Riza certainly understands why. The true reasons for the war aren’t widely known in these parts, and most times, any criticism of the government is met with wariness. To be critical of Amestris makes a lot of people uncomfortable. To them, she’s a hero, _a real hero_ , fighting the Ishvalan scourge. 

Some days she wishes she were still that ignorant.

Berthold emerges from the house in his coat and takes in a deep breath of clean country air. His cup of coffee matches hers, and he settles into the rocker next to her. It's become an unspoken pattern for her to sit out here in the morning; it had started a month after she’d come home when she was too broken to leave the house. Sitting on the porch was a baby step that Berthold was sure she’d abandon as her resolve improved and she’d begun to heal. He was sure that when the bite of December air stung her cheeks red, she’d stop sitting outside. But she hadn’t stopped, and he hadn’t asked her to. Instead, he sat next to her and watched the world through her eyes. 

He feels her glancing at him curiously as he takes sip after sip of his coffee. “Penny for your thoughts?” he asks.

She burrows deeper into her blanket. “You’re fidgeting,” she says. “I was wondering if your scars itch.”

He nods. “They do. Seems cold weather is starting to irritate them a bit.” The burn scars in question are shiny and pink against his skin, fresh compared to the older burns from his first successful attempt at flame alchemy.

He hides them under bandages as often as he can, layering them with salve. They’re uncomfortable to feel but even worse to look at. 

That had to be the worst thing he’d ever done to himself. He’d taken shots of whiskey to numb the pain and his inhibitions when he’d done it, strapped himself down so he wouldn’t jerk away when he snapped his fingers. The smell of his own melting flesh was so putrid he can remember it exactly just thinking about it, even now. 

He’d never wish that on anyone. It had to be done, though. The array was mangled and unlearnable, just as it needed to be.

Riza takes a deep breath. “May I see them?”

Berthold stills. He can almost feel the scars throbbing under his layers of clothing. “They’re quite unpleasant, darling,” he says. “I don't want you to see that.”

“Why did you do it?” she asks abruptly. When he looks at her, her eyes are shining. “It’s over. It’s all over. You didn’t need to…”

Riza is a perceptive young woman. Always has been. He didn’t need to tell her what he’d done when she’d seen the bandages for the first time in a coherent state. And now, he doesn’t need to tell her how badly he’d hurt himself trying to erase the tattoo. If he hadn’t had the wits to phone the family doctor afterward, he wasn’t sure he’d be sitting there with her now.

At the time, he would have welcomed death. He’d wished his wounds would have become infected and gangrenous and that it would have taken him home to Ava. It’s what he deserved. But now, he imagines his broken little bird coming home from war to an empty house, and it’s all he can do to not throw himself at her feet and apologize. 

“Elizabeth,” he says softly. “I am as responsible for those atrocities as anyone.”

She is silent, but her steely expression tells him that she does not agree. 

“I created flame alchemy and taught it to someone who went and used it for what it was,” he explains. “Fire is rebirth and redemption, yes. But it’s also a great and terrible thing. It’s a weapon as much as it is anything else.”

“That’s not your fault,” she says softly.

“It is,” he says lamely. “Because I knew what the military was and taught Roy anyway. I knew it was a possibility that he would see combat, and let him learn it anyway. You see, I am as much accountable for the lives he took as he is. Moreso, even. Roy was just a kid. I was the master alchemist. I should have listened to my convictions.”

Maybe if he had sided with his gut she wouldn’t be like this, traumatized and haunted. Maybe she’d have stayed at university, finished her education, gotten a good job without angry ghosts trailing after her.

And for as much resentment as he held for Roy afterward, he’s come to realize that he mostly just resents himself. It was true; Roy was young and idealistic. And as entitled as he was to make his own mistakes and learn from them, Berthold had been entrusted for years to look after him and teach him. Roy wasn’t his son, but he felt responsible for him like he was. And he should have done better.

Riza reaches over and places her hand on his, curling around his fingers as she used to when she was little.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he says, squeezing her hand. “I did it because I failed you. Both of you. That’s why I burnt it off.”

And he won’t fail anyone like this again. Flame alchemy’s secrets are no more, and if Roy is the man he hopes he is, then the rest of that knowledge will die with him.

“Mama taught me how to shoot,” she says. “Is she the reason I’m a sniper? Do you hold her accountable?”

“No, of course not,” he says immediately. “It’s different, though. You must see how.”

“I do,” she says, and sighs. “I forgive you, you know.”

They truly are birds of a feather.

“Thank you, darling,” he says. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Nor I,” she says. “And I know you don’t agree. But I don’t agree with you either.”

“So we agree to forgive,” he muses. “And accept forgiveness.”

She nods. “I can do it if you can.”

“I can,” he agrees. “I will.” 

He’ll do it for her. Like he always has.

“You know,” she says after a time. “I would have followed him anywhere.”

He shrugs. “I’m starting to see that. Though I don’t understand why.”

“He’s a good man,” she says. “In a lot of ways, he reminds me of you.”

It makes him want to melt into his chair. He’d hoped she’d never figure that out.

“I think...I need to help him,” she says. “He’s right, about change. Turning it all on its head. It’s an admirable dream.”

“Yes,” he agrees hollowly.

“I have to protect him,” she says softly. 

Berthold allows a chuckle. “Someone has to.” 

Roy’s dream will earn him enemies. She’s the best soldier to protect him. He just wishes it wasn’t _his_ daughter. A father worries. 

And he can’t help but think about their history. How it will affect their work. 

“We’re different people now,” she says, and he realizes belatedly that he’s spoken aloud. “It’s not the way it was.”

“If you say so, I believe you,” he says. “So, then, Little Bird. I just have one last question for you.”

She looks up at him, a puzzled expression on her face. 

“What do we do when we fall?"

She smiles as she stands, and extends her hand to him. “We get back up.”

* * *

So Solstice passes with just the two of them, and with it comes the birth of a new year. She packs her bags and readies herself to go back to the academy and finish what she started, and now, there’s a new dream in her heart. Berthold drives her to the train station and wraps her in a big hug before she boards. 

“Call after you get settled, alright?” he says. “And don’t forget to call your grandparents.”

“I will, I will,” she says.

“Because when you don’t, they call me.”

“You love grandma and grandpa.”

“Feh. That’s a bit inflated.”

“Oh, stop. I’ll call.” She squeezes him tight. “Be safe, okay? And get ahold of someone if you need help?”

“I’ll be fine. _You_ be safe,” he says. “Now, get. You’re going to miss your train.”

She pulls back and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ears. 

“Thank you for everything,” she says.

He nods. “I’m proud of you, Elizabeth.”

He feels rejuvenated by her bright, confident smile. She isn’t unbroken, not yet. But she’s healing, and soon, she’ll be better. 

“Love you,” she says. 

“Love you, too.” 

They wave at each other and she boards her train.

Soon, she’ll do wonders.

* * *

As it turns out, Roy had meant it literally when he said he wanted Riza to watch his back. Soon after she finishes her remaining term at the military academy, she is installed as his personal aide and bodyguard. He is her superior officer. This means, Berthold realizes with delight, that any relationship between the two is expressly forbidden. And not just by good sense - by a court-martial! The thought dawns on him on his way into town for his morning coffee and breakfast at Irene’s, putting a little pep in his step and a new shine to his day.

“What’s got you all cheery?” asks Irene as she pours him a steaming, fresh cup of coffee.

“Oh, just life,” Berthold says absently. He fluffs his newspaper with a neat snap.

“He’s loopy from the pain aids,” Schwartz teases goodnaturedly. He claps Berthold on the shoulder before falling onto the stool next to him, propping his cane against the bartop. Berthold hands over the amusements section without complaint.

“I’m allowed to be happy for no reason,” Berthold protests indignantly. "And I'm not taking them anymore."

“Pain aids?” Irene gasps. “What for?”

Berthold sneezes over his shoulder. “Accident at the house.”

“Some accident,” Schwartz remarks. “Burnt up his whole arm. Show ‘er the bandages, Bert.”

He plunks a sugar cube in his mug. “It was months ago. And don’t call me that.”

“Oh, dear,” Irene fusses. “What on earth were you tryin’ to do?”

Berthold shrugs, eyeing the fraying gauze. He still had some persistent irritation and more healing to do, and he'd run out of salve the night before; he’ll have to add some to his order at the apothecary. It was doing wonders to speed up the healing.

“Oh, just something new with--”

“Your alchemy,” Irene and Schwartz finish in tandem. 

He sets down the paper. “Well, you two are cheeky today. Why on earth’d you ask if you knew?”

Irene laughs while she grabs a plate from the line cook piled high with biscuits, sausage gravy, and home fries and sets it in front of him. It smells heavenly. “We just know you, Berthold.”

“Then you must know you forgot my--”

“Scrapple,” Irene finishes, setting down a saucer with two thick slices.

Schwartz nudges him with his elbow. “Wanna know what that’s made of?”

“No, now piss off.”

“Boys,” Irene chides.

They shoot the bull until Schwartz leaves at quarter till eight. The morning rush has Irene and the other girls running back and forth to the kitchen like mad women. It gives Berthold time to eat and read his paper in relative silence, aside from the bright chatter filling the diner.

Later, Irene comes back to replenish his coffee and remove his plates, scraped clean. 

“How’re you doing since your girl went back?”

Berthold shrugs. “Fine,” he says. “S’quiet again.”

“You mind?”

“More than I did before.”

Irene taps her nails on the counter like she very much wants to say something. He looks up to find her glancing back and forth across the diner before leaning forward very carefully. 

“Is she um, doing alright?”

Berthold blinks a few times, picking his words carefully. Irene has always had a way of getting right to the point. Her bluntness is normally a breath of fresh air, but he finds himself a bit taken back. 

“It’s just,” Irene says in a rush. “I’m worried about those kids. Combat, you know? You see things.”

He finds himself agreeing hollowly, and she continues. 

“I know...most people have a certain opinion of the war. But it bothers me, Berthold. That order. How could the Fuhrer - you know? When they were talking on the radio about it, I just…” She trails off. “Well, anyway. Don’t mind me.”

“No, you’re right,” Berthold starts. Irene meets his eye, and he realizes she is trembling. With what, he’s not sure. “You’re right. It was wrong.”

She deflates with a relieved sigh and they make idle chit-chat until Berthold plunks on his bowler hat and gets ready to leave. They nod at each other as she hands over his receipt, and it’s with a comforting reassurance that Berthold leaves that day knowing he’s not the only one in Heidel who knows something is wrong.

* * *

He is certain that he’s better off not knowing what Riza is up to. Their letters and phone conversations mostly contain the same themes: Are you well? What’s the weather like? What did you do today?

She has a dog now. She’s always loved dogs, even when she was a little girl. This Black Hayate - what an odd naming sense she has - seems every bit the loyal companion she needs in her topsy-turvy world.

Riza doesn’t talk about work very much, but when she does it sounds humdrum and droll. Too much paperwork, too many meetings, too many morons to keep on task. It makes him sleepy just listening to her describe it, and it’s one of many new reasons he can add to his mental list of why the military is pointless.

Still, Riza’s job makes him paranoid, because he knows she does more than paperwork and meet with big-wigs and wrangle morons. She let slip about a teammate of hers before, a young man, who was paralyzed in the line of duty. He read in the paper about that officer who was murdered a few months back. Then there’s that lunatic who’s been murdering state alchemists (add that to the list). He’s not an idiot.

Speaking of idiots. Years ago, Roy Mustang bared his soul in his kitchen promising he’d rise to the top and drain the swamp on corruption. Yet every time Berthold peers into the society pages while perusing the Eastern Times, there appears Roy Mustang - photographed or written about going on dates! What a slimeball. Well, as long as he isn’t bothering his daughter, Berthold doesn’t care who he chases.

He wishes Roy Mustang would leave him alone, too. That hotshot has the nerve to write him letters. Nothing of substance, not asking for anything. Just normal conversation. Sometimes - and this never fails to get Berthold’s blood boiling - he _calls_ . Just to _check in_ . _What am I, his grandpa?_ Berthold asks himself. He doesn’t need one more person checking up on him to make sure he’s staying healthy and socializing. He’s retired, for God’s sake. That’s the _only_ thing he’s doing.

Riza has been stationed in East City for a long time. As such, her trips home are sparing. She’s able to make it back for a long winter holiday every year and takes periodic leave to see him throughout the spring and summer. Sometimes she surprises him with a weekend visit, appearing on his doorstep early Friday mornings, fresh off the train. He grumbles that he can’t prepare her room if he doesn’t know she’s coming, but they both know her spontaneous visits make his entire week.

He’s able to visit occasionally, too, which he likes well enough. When he’s on lecture circuits - so much for retirement - he stays in her spare bedroom and spends far too much time doting on Black Hayate. 

She’s had a string of relationships over the years. During one trip, she introduces him to her current boyfriend; they’ve been starting to get serious, and she’d met his parents the weekend before. He was a nice fellow, very respectful. Smart. Seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. But he can tell the young man is intimidated by his daughter, more than he lets on, and prickles at the mention of Roy, who is inevitable as rain to come up in conversation. By the sour look on the young man’s face, Berthold knows it won’t last, and that’s just a shame.

Traveling more than that, though, wreaks havoc on the old bones - and he reiterates as much since lately Riza can’t seem to stop bringing up the idea of him taking a trip. Xing, Aerugo, Creta...any number of his favorite spots abroad for old times’ sake.

When she’s transferred to Central command, he nearly drops the phone in surprise. She’s so close, she could take the train and be in Heidel in less than two hours! But he doesn’t miss the apprehension in her voice. He knows better than anyone how well Riza can mask her true feelings, but a father knows when something isn’t right. He also knows she’ll tell him when she’s ready. So, a few weeks later when she shares that she’s now reporting as the personal aid to the Fuhrer - _the Fuhrer -_ he knows something has gone very wrong in Mustang’s plan. 

He finds himself waiting for Roy’s phone call. He has a pattern, whether he knows it or not, to call every two weeks on Wednesday afternoons. Normally, Berthold is on a walk this time of day, returning home just minutes before the phone rings in the foyer - but he’s so anxious to talk to Roy that he skips the walk entirely and instead hovers by the phone, tapping his foot. When the call finally comes, he picks up on the first ring. 

“Hello, Master Hawkeye! How are you doing today?” he booms in that fake, smarmy, brown-nosing little voice of his. _Oh, Ava,_ Berthold thinks, _if I didn’t need to speak with him so badly I would snap fire at him through the phone line_. 

“Roy. Fine. Healthy.”

“Socializing?”

“Yes, yes, enough. Roy,” he says sharply. “Have you spoken with Riza?”

There is a loud clatter. From the way the receiver is muffled, it sounds like he’s dropped the phone. His voice is somewhat muted and fuzzy now when he speaks, like he’s cupping his hand over the receiver. 

“No. Have you?” he asks, his voice a bit frantic. “What did she say? Is she alright?”

“Well, I was hoping you had the answer to that,” Berthold replies. “She doesn’t seem herself.”

Roy’s breathing picks up to nearly a pant. It sounds very unbecoming.

“Sir, can I call you back in ten minutes?”

Berthold sputters indignantly. “Now just wait a minute! You know something!”

“Sir, this is not a conversation I can have with you now. Stay by your landline - I’ll call back in ten.”

“Boy, don’t you dare--”

The line clicks, dead. Berthold slams the phone on the wall and folds his arms over his chest.

But sure enough, ten minutes later, the phone is ringing again. Berthold jerks the handset to his ear and barks, “Mustang, what the hell is going on out there?”

“Sir,” he huffs. “Hello. My apologies.”

“Mustang.”

“I do think there is something wrong with Riza,” he says frankly. “She seems off to me too, but we can’t be in contact with one another.”

The background noise is distracting. “Are you in the middle of the city right now? What’s all that racket?”

“A phone booth,” says Roy. “I think I’m being watched. Talking sensitively on my office phone isn’t safe.”

“Oh, for crying out loud. You can’t possibly be that important.”

“Master Hawkeye.”

“Tell me the truth, Roy,” Berthold says sharply, his apprehension growing. “What’s happened to my daughter?”

“She is reporting directly to the Fuhrer now, which I’m sure you already know,” he says. “It’s a long, complicated story. But she’s in danger. Because of her connection to me. We’ve uncovered some - some unpleasant things recently about...people.” He takes a deep breath and by the rustling of the phone receiver, he must be looking around to check his surroundings. “There’s more darkness at work here than we originally thought. People are dying, Master Hawkeye.”

Berthold gets a sick, slithery feeling all at once that makes him shiver. Roy may be a bullshitter, but this, he can feel in his bones, is real and true. 

“I heard about that man that was killed recently,” Berthold says. “In a phone booth. Some up-and-comer at Central command.”

“...Yes,” Roy replies. “Maes Hughes.”

“Buddy of yours?”

“Yeah. Riza knew him too.”

“You think his death is connected.”

“It has to be. Hughes had vital information to share with me the night he was murdered. No way it’s a coincidence.”

“Hmm, yes. The universe is rarely so lazy.”

“Exactly.”

Berthold’s heart sinks. “And now Riza is in the belly of the beast.”

Roy heaves a sigh. “They took my queen, sir. I’m lost.”

Berthold doesn’t quite know what to say to that. For Roy to refer to Riza as his queen - he knows what that means, of course, in chess terms. But in regards to their personal status…

“When you said she’s in danger because of her connection to you…” Berthold says. “You don’t mean professionally, do you?”

Roy sputters. “Of course I do."

Berthold stands frozen and thinks for a moment. And all of a sudden, it makes sense.

“Yes...yes, it’s all become very clear, Roy Mustang,” he says darkly. “You’ve always led with your emotions, you know.”

“Sir?”

“If you’re this obvious with me, I can’t imagine how you look in front of your superiors,” Berthold growls. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you? _That’s_ why she’s in danger.” 

He pauses, waiting for Roy to refute it, but he doesn’t.

“Because for all your rhetoric about needing her to watch your back, to keep you right,” he continues. “It’s not that at all, is it? It’s...it’s…” 

Oh, yes. He understands perfectly now. And he’s furious.

“You just wanted her close to you, didn’t you? Even at the risk of a court-martial? Well, tell me this, Lieutenant Colonel,” he snarls. “How will my daughter pay for your naivete this time? With her career, or with her life?”

“Sir, please,” Roy pleads hopelessly. "It's not like that."

“How many times are you going to hurt her? Are you that much of a fool?”

The weight of Berthold’s accusations is too heavy for Roy to bear. He’s right, of course, and the pain of being known so transparently makes Roy want to scream. He slumps against the side of the phone booth, the handset still crooked on his shoulder.

“She is everything to me,” Roy confesses weakly. “But sir, you have to know that when I asked for her to be my adjutant, there was no unscrupulous intent. She truly was - and still is - the best person for the job. And at that point, I thought that that part of our relationship was over.”

He clears his throat and the wobbling in his voice sinks into something hard and resigned. 

“But over the years, everything has changed. We’ve gone through more than I could imagine. And I don’t know why it took her reassignment to show me, but sir, I’ve never stopped loving her. Not for a second.” He takes a deep breath that almost sounds like a hiccup. “And you’re right. It’s my fault she’s in danger. I’m worried about her constantly.”

“Get in line,” Berthold huffs.

“But, sir, you should know...I think she shares my feelings. I can’t imagine life without her.”

Berthold wants to snap at this foolish, idiotic, reckless young man.

“You’d better hope that you never have to,” he warns darkly. “Because if something happens to Riza, and your guilt doesn’t kill you, I will.”

Berthold doesn’t wait for a response. He slams the phone receiver down and rests his face in his trembling hands.

* * *

He tries to forget about that conversation with Roy - he really does. But for the next several weeks, it replays in his mind at every idle junction. When he wakes up. When he’s in the shower. On walks. While he reads. Before bed. In his dreams. 

Not one bit of that conversation was pleasant. First and foremost, that Riza’s life is at risk daily, while she maintains a facade of normalcy in letters and over the phone, is frightening. It makes him feel like she’s trying to protect him with ignorance when it should be him protecting her. 

Sure, she’s a soldier - and a good one, at that. But this is his little girl, who ran to him for safe haven during thunderstorms. Who clung to his leg when she saw a feral coyote in the yard. _He_ was her father. _He_ protected _her._

Who protects Riza now? Roy Mustang is - trying. Berthold understands there’s not much he can do. He hopes that Roy’s feelings for his daughter are not a detriment. If anything, it means that he’ll protect her before he saves his own skin, and that goes far in reassuring a worried father. But it also means that he’s pliable and vulnerable, prone to making snap decisions if he thinks her life is at risk. 

Berthold is rarely scared. But there is evil at work in Central. 

His hackles rise again during a phone call with Riza, as he’s sharing the dates for his next trip to Central, slated for April. He’ll be seeing his psychiatrist in person and attending a fascinating lecture at the university on Xingese alkahestry. He’d taken a little break from traveling during the winter; it’d been snowy and driving in it had been stressful. Because of that, and Riza’s pernicious schedule, he hadn’t been able to see her in months. 

“Now’s not a good time,” she says, a bit sharply. “Work is busier than ever. I’d rather you say home.”

He deflates but tries to keep the glumness out of his voice.

“Well, that’s alright,” he says. “We can see each other another weekend. I’ll just go to my appointment and the lecture and come home the same night.”

“No!” Riza shouts abruptly, frustration coloring her tone. “You need to stay away from Central!”

She’s as surprised at her outburst as he is and quickly tries to recover. He notices her floundering right away and starts retracing their conversations for hints at something amiss.

“What I mean is--well, you know how crowded it gets here in the spring. You hate that.”

“Elizabeth,” he warns. “I’m not a fool. What’s really going on?”

She sighs heavily. “It’s complicated,” she says.

It must be serious for her to react so evasively. Berthold turns over his options in his head.

“Do you want me to come to get you?” he asks finally. “I can get you out of there. We can flee to Xing if we need to. I mean it.”

And they can. He’d struck up a regular correspondence over the years with his former master, now retired and living in the city to be near his children. Master Kuo would help them if he asked.

“Don’t say that,” she says.

“Is Mustang making you do this?” he asks. 

“No,” she replies. “I don’t see him around anymore. We don’t really talk outside of work anyway.”

That surprises him. “Really?”

“He is not my friend,” she says robotically. “He’s my superior officer nothing more.”

“Speaking of superior officers, how is it going with Bradley?”

She struggles with words. “He’s a busy man,” she says finally. “Very dedicated. It’s hard work. But it can be...inspiring, at times.” 

Her tone is anything but inspired and he suspects she’s trying to hint at something. He remembers Roy’s concerns, and he wonders if she’s the Fuhrer’s hostage more than a subordinate. 

He doesn’t know how Riza does it. She’s close as can be to the man who signed Executive Order #3066 into being. Berthold doesn’t think he’d be able to maintain any kind of composure. Riza’s patience must be extraordinary.

“It’s been lonely,” she confesses. “I didn’t expect that. I miss the way things were.”

“It won’t last forever,” he says gently. “Right? This will all be over in time.”

“Yes,” she says cautiously. “I think so.”

“Mustang’s probably hard at work trying to get you back. He’s tenacious.”

That makes her laugh. “Yes, that’s one way to describe him.”

He pauses. “You really haven’t talked to him?”

“No. Have you?” 

"A little,” he says.

“Oh.” She hesitates. “Well, that’s good. I’m glad you’re able to get along.”

 _I wouldn’t say we’re getting along_ , he thinks. 

“Well, the sooner things get back to normal the better,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll have a lot to catch up on. Maybe he won’t have time to call me as much once you’re calling the shots again.”

He can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “You can admit you like hearing from him, Dad. It’s okay.”

“I would admit it if I only did! He’s a pest!” 

“Sure,” she says, and there’s a long pause as they awkwardly dance around the elephant on the phone. “Well, I hate to let you go so soon, but I’ve got a busy night ahead of me.”

“That’s alright,” he says. “I have plans myself. Schwartz invited me over for cards.”

“Is that so?” she asks, clearly impressed. 

“Oh, yes,” he says. “Your old man is making friends left and right these days. Though I’m not sure how keen they’ll be on me once I take all their money.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Riza says. “That’s great to hear. Try to let someone else win once or twice.”

“We’ll see,” he says. “And Elizabeth...if you need help, all you need to do is ask.”

She’s quiet for a long time. When she finally answers, her voice is a bit choked. 

“Thank you,” she says. “I’ll be okay.”

“It’s okay not to be.”

“I know.”

He pauses. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”

She clears her throat a few times. 

“N-no,” she says shakily. “Well - actually. I’d like it if we switched to letters for a little while. Do you mind writing?”

Berthold blinks. “Well, sure. That’s fine.” He’s perplexed. But in a rush, he remembers how Roy had insisted on taking his last phone call from a phone booth. He said he was being watched. Is Riza being watched too? 

“You know, Mustang told me--”

“Dad,” she interrupts. “I really do have to go.”

“Okay. Okay.” He can hear her trembling exhales over the receiver. “Take care of yourself, darling. I love you.”

He doesn’t want to hang up. Something is very wrong.

But he doesn’t push yet. He thinks about her wobbling voice for a long after she says “I love you, too,” and hangs up the phone.

* * *

April in Heidel is beautiful every year. The buds are finally bursting forward from the trees, the fields and mountains revived. Life reborn. It’s refreshing and makes for a good mood. 

It is the first time in a long time that Berthold doesn’t wake up with a sickening sense of foreboding, and he’s determined to have a good day. And even better, his astronomy senses are tingling with excitement for the solar eclipse later in the afternoon. 

So, he settles back into his routine: he readies himself for the day. He goes on a short walk around the property. He pulls weeds in the garden and waters the flowers. He is about to go into town when the phone rings. 

Irene’s shaky voice on the other end makes his stomach drop. 

“Berthold,” she says in a nervous, wavering voice. “You’ve got to get down here. Something’s happening in Central.”

Berthold hasn’t driven since winter; the car needs work before he takes it out for the nice weather. But it’s clear there’s no time to waste walking, and he hops into the driver’s seat and twists the ignition. The old thing groans to a start and he punches the gas impatiently and flies down the lane. 

He pulls screaming into an empty space in front of the diner. Schwartz is at the door and holds it open for him, gesticulating frantically. 

When Berthold enters, everyone in the diner is huddled in front of the radio. They are all staring right at him when the disc jockey booms: 

“Citizens are warned to stay inside - under no circumstances attempt to engage in the scuffle. And for those of you just joining us, we have breaking news: a military coup d’etat was launched this morning in Central. Sources say that Central command is under attack…”

* * *

Berthold sits in the dinner with an increasingly large crowd for hours listening to the coup d’etat coverage; even though he knows it’d never happen, he’s desperate for a mention of his daughter’s name. Anything to confirm she’s alive.

Irene lets him borrow the diner phone and he rings every Centralian he can think of. He dials Riza’s apartment but receives no answer - knows he won’t - but he has to, just to be sure. He dials Grumman; no answer, not even from Claudette. Riza’s friend, Rebecca; no answer. Roy Mustang; no answer. Madam Christmas; no answer. He repeats the call cycle over and over again until finally, on the fifth rotation, Claudette answers the phone at the Grumman’s. 

“Oh, God, Berthold,” she cries. “We have no idea what’s going on. Emily’s here with the kids and we’re hiding out and trying to make believe this isn’t all happening.” 

“Have you heard from Elizabeth?” he rasps weakly. 

“No, nothing. I can’t get a hold of anyone.”

“Let me know if you hear anything,” he requests and hangs up. 

He pinches himself and slaps his cheeks. He holds his breath and audibly tells himself to wake up. Because this is a nightmare, isn’t it? There’s no way he is living in a world where his daughter is involved in a military coup d’etat. 

Numbly, he registers that the eclipse will be starting soon. Without preamble or excuse, he trudges past his friends, past the pull of worried hands, out of the diner in a daze, and drives himself home. He the car parked out in the driveway instead of packing it away in the garage again. 

He shoulders the door open, staggers into the house, and drags a chair behind him to where the telephone is bolted into the wall in the foyer. He sits himself down, barely registering when the world goes dark; the solar eclipse is upon them, but it’s the last thing on his mind. All he can think of is his soldier girl, fighting. Caught up in something insidious that has finally reached its breaking point.

And then, like the snap of fingers, a strange and powerful pulling sensation knocks him out cold.

* * *

When he finally comes to, the world is light outside again with the haze of a new morning. 

And his phone is ringing. 

He’s sore all over. Berthold is still a bit out of sorts when he picks himself up off the floor and settles himself back into his chair, leaning his aching head against the wall for just a moment while he reaches up and jerks the handset off the wall. He presses the receiver to his ear and grunts a stale greeting. 

A familiar voice greets him. Her voice. Her raspy, weary, blessedly alive voice says, “Dad?”

Berthold starts. “Elizabeth?!”

“Oh,” she melts. “Oh, thank God, you’re okay!”

“Me?!” he squawks. “What about you? Darling, what on earth is going on?”

She laughs and laughs until he thinks she might be crying. A low, honeyed voice in the background mumbles something, and she moves her mouth away from the receiver to say, “I’ve got him on now; he’s fine.”

“Elizabeth,” Berthold barks. “What is going on?”

“Dad,” she breathes a sigh of relief. “I don’t know where to begin.”

* * *

As soon as he can stand without wobbling, he’s on the road and driving faster than he’s ever driven in his life.

Riza is alive. Perfectly alive, even with swaths of white bandages wrapped around her neck. When he sees the pinks of her freshly fixed wound bleeding through in an obscene line, he wants to demand that someone tell him who’s done this to her and melt the skin from their bones. She looks exhausted, but the tense pinch in her forehead disappears when he walks into the room. She’s too weak to stand, though, so he goes to her, and as soon as Riza reaches her arms out to him he’s clutching her to him in a tight, warm hug. 

“Careful of her neck,” pipes up one of the nursing staff.

“Sorry,” says Berthold, but doesn’t release her. He pulls back after a time and cups his daughter’s face in her hands, thumbing away a tear that’s dripped down her cheek. 

He’s so overwhelmed with relief that he doesn’t find it strange that she’s being treated in the same hospital room as Roy Mustang. These last few months have already been so indelibly weird; this might as well happen.

“Master Hawkeye?” calls out Roy’s voice. 

“Roy,” Berthold says while he straightens. When he looks over to his old student, he’s perplexed. He’s just feet away, but he looks completely disoriented, his head whirling back and forth trying to place his location. But it’s not until Berthold crosses the room and stands right in front of him that he sees why; the boy’s greyed eyes stare right through him, and he bites back a startled gasp. Roy Mustang is blind.

Riza convinces Berthold to sit in an armchair and talk with them, and he stares at Mustang with unconcealed horror all the while. She had explained the bare minimum on the phone, but he was too overwhelmed and worried for her to take in much more than her safety. Now, between Roy and her strained interjections, they tell him of The Promised Day and the events leading up to it. 

The man leading the country was a monster - an actual monster - and still, had the support of a few deplorable humans in his cabinet. They tell him of the nationwide transmutation circle, the philosopher’s stone, Selim Bradley’s true identity, the equivalent exchange that stole Roy’s eyesight. Roy’s maimed hands, the young Xingese princess that saved Riza’s life, a pair of heroic chimeras, an Ishvalan on their side and a homunculus possessing the future Xingese emperor. A young boy’s soul trapped in a suit of armor, and the youngest state alchemist in history...it’s unbelievable. 

It sounds unreal. Berthold is half-convinced that this is all an elaborate dream, and perhaps he’s been dead all along. 

Speaking of which. Berthold remembers the pull on his soul during the eclipse, the way he’d lost consciousness overnight. When he brings this up, Riza looks stricken. 

“That would have been the transmutation circle at work,” she says softly. “That’s why I was so worried when you answered my phone call. Most souls went back into their bodies, but the very old and sick didn’t make it.” She stares pointedly at his unwrapped arm, his scars rubbing against his shirtsleeves. 

“I was so scared,” she continues. “I was worried that you weren’t strong enough to come back to us. Especially when you didn’t answer right away.”

Berthold smiles wryly. “It’ll take a bit more than that to take me down,” he says.

There are lots of visitors. Mustang’s unit haunts the halls of the hospital, popping in with questions and updates throughout the days. Berthold stays at Riza’s apartment during his visit, tidying up for her return and doting on Black Hayate in her absence. By day, he’s a staple of their hospital room. At one point, a portly red-haired member of their unit - Breda - arrives with stacks of books that he sits at Roy’s bedside. 

“I’ll read to you and quiz you,” he says. 

“Wait, let me,” Berthold insists. “I’m his teacher. He knows how this works.” 

Roy groans. “I’m out of practice.”

There’s a pair of golden-haired brothers in the hospital that Riza wants to visit. One of them is an emaciated young teenager with long hair and sallow, sunken eyes - the one who had been living as a suit of armor. Without being asked, Roy tells Berthold the miraculous story of the brothers Elric. He’s enraptured by their tale, and as if he isn’t in awe of his daughter already, he realizes that she’s part of history now. 

She’ll be written about in history books. Generations from now, children will learn of the sacrifices of the Hawk’s eye. He can scarcely believe it. 

The older Elric, the youngest state alchemist, the one with the automail leg and an arm significantly smaller than the other - returned to him in exchange for his talent - comes to visit once or twice over the days that Berthold is there. The kid is a cocky little shit, but he’s funny - and he pisses Mustang off without trying, which makes Berthold like him even more. But when Mustang introduces Berthold as his own former master and Riza’s father, the kid’s eyes grow wide as saucers. 

“You’re a legend,” says the kid reverently, and sidles up next to him. “I’ve read your book.”

Riza dotes on those kids like they’re her own. It’s fascinating to watch her mother them without realizing it, offering a comforting hand on the shoulder and a listening ear. It’s so much how Ava was able to bond with children of all ages. Motherhood came to Ava naturally, and he suspects if Riza ever has children, she’ll be just the same - beloved without trying. 

Berthold has been in Central with Riza for four days when a pair of doctors pay a visit to their hospital room while they’re putting Roy through a grueling quiz. One doctor, his face maimed, produces a little red gem that Berthold instantly recognizes as a philosopher’s stone.

He’d been reading about them for years. He never thought he’d be able to see one for himself, let alone experience its power. In fact, until this moment he had thought them a myth. The doctor wants to use the stone to restore Roy’s eyesight, but there’s someone else on their squad who needs it too. He remembers Riza sharing about the teammate who’d been paralyzed in combat. When he learns the real story, about how he and Roy were impaled by a humanoid woman, he believes he’s heard it all. 

All of this information is giving him a new respect for Roy, which makes him uncomfortable. It makes him realize that perhaps his team’s loyalty wasn’t as ludicrous as he thought; Roy was a man worth following.

Jean Havoc’s body is restored by the power of the philosopher’s stone. He gets his own hospital room with a gaggle of doting nurses who are kept in their place by Riza's friend, Rebecca, whose escapades have always entertained him greatly. Berthold holds in a laugh every time he catches Ms. Catalina standing sentry outside Havoc’s room, scowling at the young nurses who come by on their rounds. 

Everyone is anxious for the stone to heal Roy’s eyes. Dr. Marcoh gives his warnings: the stone is unpredictable. There might not be enough power left. Roy’s eyesight will probably be permanently impaired; he’ll definitely need glasses, and perhaps surgery too. Overall, Roy has a long road to recovery ahead of him. His hands will need several surgeries and considerable physical therapy, and his body is riddled with heavy cuts and bruises and burns that will need to be cleaned and cared for daily. And he’s not the only one; everyone is beat to hell. 

But despite it all, they’re ready to rebuild Ishval. It’s their entire team’s priority. Berthold can’t help but be impressed by their convictions, their dreams.

Before Dr. Marcoh uses the stone, they turn off all the lights and draw the blinds. Roy is given a pair of extra dark sunglasses to wear to help his eyes adjust to the light he’s no longer used to. The group hovers in a semi-circle around Dr. Marcoh, who stands directly in front of Roy. 

“Shield your eyes,” he warns before he activates the stones. They look away as a bright red flash consumes the room. 

Roy is still as can be. 

His eyes are twitching behind his glasses, and the group waits with bated breath as he seems to become more and more coherent.

He’s adjusting. He’s looking. Looking for someone specific. 

There’s only one person who can captivate him so fully. Berthold sees the moment Roy’s eyes lock onto Riza, and he reaches for her instantly. 

“Lieutenant,” he says softly, and Riza moves toward him. He pulls his sunglasses down and takes her in. She’s kneeling in front of him on the hospital floor, gently cradling his wrists and making an effort to avoid his bandaged hands.

“Colonel?” she asks tentatively. 

He grazes her cheeks with his knuckles. His eyes travel her face, memorizing as much as he can. With a relieved smile, he nods.

She throws her arms over his shoulders. The rest of the group cheers and hollers, patting Mustang on the back and shaking Dr. Marcoh’s hand. But it becomes clear that Roy and Riza are in their own world, and after the congratulations have died down, Dr. Marcoh loudly suggests that they give the pair some privacy. 

The crowd dissipates instantly, agreeing at once that this has become a rather personal moment for their fearless leaders.

Berthold is the last one out. As he shuts the door, he catches sight of them clinging to each other. As the door clicks shut, he hears Roy whispering, “Don’t go. Don’t go.”

* * *

Ishval is on the horizon. 

Riza heals and Riza plans. She goes to her appointments at the hospital and meets with her psychiatrist. She is doing well, considering the trauma of the last several years, but the closer Ishval gets the more anxious she is. Berthold knows she’s scared. He wants to offer her the easy way out, encourage her to stay, but can’t bring himself to do it. As afraid as she is, he knows she needs this. 

She and Roy both do. 

Roy learns and Roy leads. He goes through surgeries and grueling physical therapies and medications that give him night terrors. He feels the weight of his responsibility but stands tall nonetheless, forging a path forward with a mask of fearlessness that would inspire the most lackluster soldier. The team assembled, he proceeds into the unknown with Riza by his side. 

He’d asked her not to go, and she won’t go anywhere if he isn’t there with her. They don’t need a vocalized commitment for everyone around them to know they’ll never be apart again.

That’s why Berthold doesn’t bother with a blessing. Roy doesn’t need it. He is hers, and she is his - and has been all along.

Berthold goes back to Heidel and writes. He writes page after page of fantastical stories and sends them to Master Kuo, sharing how he’s seen the power of the philosopher’s stone. He shares his daughter’s plans and shares how much he’ll miss her, shares how he’s feeling unmoored with her ambition taking her away from Amestris. He shares his love of Xing, and reminiscences on his time there, wishing he could see it again after all these years. 

And Master Kuo reponds.

And Master Kuo tells him that he’s welcome in Xing.

It’s a nice sentiment, knowing he’d be happily accepted back if he chose to go. But it’s a hollow thing, an invitation anyone would receive - or so he thinks. He couldn’t travel that far, anyway, without help. Infrastructure has improved and travel is safer and easier to Xing, but Berthold is getting old.

He tells himself that he’s happy in Heidel, alone at the manor. He tells himself he’s fulfilled by his breakfasts at Irene’s and playing cards with Schwartz and passing time at the apothecary. He tells himself that his monthly visits to Central for his doctor’s appointments and visiting with the Grummans and Riza’s letters are all he needs.

And then Kuo Shui sends him a letter, and he tells Berthold things his father neglected to mention. That he is not long for this world and hasn’t been for some time. He asks Berthold to come. And Berthold makes a decision. 

Because Master Kuo was like a father to him. 

Because he’d missed burying his own parents. 

Because he doesn’t want to lose the last bits of time with the people to whom he owes his very self. 

So Berthold purges and Berthold packs. Berthold makes a difficult decision to leave the house behind. 

It’s mostly bare, anyway. Riza’s things have long since followed her from place to place. Ava’s material possessions were minimal; it was her love and warmth that made the house a home.

He divides and conquers his alchemy materials and keeps what he needs. He gives the house to the town and tells them to do something good with it: raise parentless children, share knowledge, build up their community. It’s their choice, so long as it’s used to give back, just as the town had given everything to him and his family when they needed it most. 

He tells his friends goodbye and promises to write when he can. He packs up his car and leaves Heidel behind. It’s been good to him, but it’s time to move on to the next adventure.

Forever? He isn’t sure. Anything is possible. 

Xing is on the horizon. 

* * *

It has been decades since he’s set foot in Xing. 

For all the changes throughout the years, the improvements to the city and roads, he might as well be experiencing it for the first time again. 

Kuo Shui has written him directions. He follows them to an expansive apartment complex in the suburbs of Xi'an, several miles from the city center and at least 20 miles from the Kuo’s former desert-border home. He’s impressed and relieved that his car held up during the trip across the hot desert on the sleek, new roads parallel to the train tracks. He’d noticed instantly how roads now rival Central’s city byways. Buses and trains abound; even crossing the border into Xing had a formal process to it with agents standing sentry at the outpost to review his papers. Even as he drove through the city, he noticed the influx of people, people everywhere; he hadn’t spent much time in the capital, but he’s sure it was never this crowded.

He parks his car in a free spot outside the complex and drinks it all in. The apartment complex is nondescript and plain, the terracotta frames bleached beige from the sun. A door creaks open a few apartments away, and from it emerges a tired-looking man who waves at him from his porch steps. Feet away is a large bay window, where several pairs of eyes are watching him through the curtains.

Shui greets him with a familiar, kind smile. Berthold hadn’t seen him or his family since he had bid them farewell on the train so many years ago. His master’s son had just been a teenager then; he’s grown now with a family of his own. Master Kuo’s letters had mentioned much about Shui, Hua, and Jingfei’s adult lives, always fond, and were full of amusing stories about the grandchildren.

He finds out that this isn’t Shui’s home, but Hua’s. She and her husband live in this large three-bedroom apartment, married just recently. Shui tells Berthold that he had planned to have Berthold stay with him and his family, but that Hua had been kind enough to offer up one of their spare bedrooms at the last minute.

“My Father has moved into the home as well, just last week,” Shui explains. “It has become unsafe for him to live on his own. It will good for you to be close. He’s looking forward to seeing you.”

Hua and her husband have empathy in their hearts. Berthold couldn’t imagine the stress of moving one’s ailing parent into one’s home, and then accepting a perfect stranger without question. Berthold is struck by their kindness.

Shui’s children are huddled around the radio when he enters the home, and all three pairs of eyes lock onto him instantly. The younger ones rush up to him immediately and begin chattering excitedly in Xingese, while Shui utters a quick reprimand. Berthold slowly works through his rusty Xingese to answer adequately, and it makes the children giggle. 

He feels awkward standing in the living room with his suitcases in his hands. Shui has disappeared down the hall and reemerges with a woman quite a bit younger than him; he’s sure Hua won’t know who he is. She was so little when he had been her father’s apprentice. But to his surprise, she greets him as if he’d never left with as much warmth and excitement as a relative of his own. 

Hua introduces Berthold to her husband, a young Xingese man with a particularly thick Amestrian accent. Berthold is fascinated to find that he was born in Central City to Xingese parents and had spent most of his life vaulting back and forth between the two countries; he had met Hua at university.

Berthold takes in the Kuo family and realizes there is one missing. He briefly remembers Master Kuo’s mentions of Jingfei, who lives several hours south with her young daughter and is rarely able to make the journey home these days. Master Kuo had written about how much he missed her and longed to see her. In a particularly touching moment, Berthold recalls that Master Kuo’s last wish was to see Jingfei and his granddaughter one last time. He wonders if this is the reason why he’s held on so long. 

Ying Yue had died just a few years ago. Her absence is palpable and hovers around her children like a heavyweight. He’d always known the family to take the lessons of Qingming to heart, but it’s clear that promises of the afterlife don’t stop one from missing their beloveds. Berthold thinks of Ying Yue, her quiet intensity and unconditional kindness, the love she had for her family, and he thanks the universe that he had the pleasure to know her. 

“You’ve traveled a long way,” says Hua. “How about I show you to your room?”

“Thank you,” he says. “But may I see him first?”

Hua nods and guides him down the hallway to a solitary bedroom, quiet and stark white. There, Master Kuo lies in bed, hardly recognizable in his old age and thin, weakened body. But the spark in his eyes shines just as bright, and he smiles at the sight of his old pupil.

“My son,” he says. “Welcome home.”

* * *

Berthold wasn’t able to say goodbye to his father. He wasn’t able to hold his mother’s hand as she took her last breaths. He wasn’t able to comfort Ava while she struggled to live.

He tries to do what he couldn’t do for his family, for Master Kuo. Family if there ever was.

He’s been battling cancer for several years, but a sudden stroke has zapped him of his strength and left him bedridden with little energy. His morale is at an all-time low; the diagnosis is terminal, and he thinks of Ying Yue often and reuniting with her in death. He is a man ready for death, a man who welcomes it. 

Berthold helps as much as he can and puts in work in exchange for staying with Hua and her husband. They are so kind to host him, to offer him the opportunity to serve them and their family. Spending time with Master Kuo and his family is some of the most fulfilling months of his recent life.

It goes quickly. Jingfei and her daughter arrive just days later, and it seems that Master Kuo’s final wish is complete. All medicine in the world can’t stop life’s true course, and it’s fitting that his family surrounds him in death just as he had surrounded himself with them in life.

They mourn together and pray for his safe passage into the next life. They sit together and tell story after story. Berthold entertains them in his plain Xingese with all the trouble they’d gotten into with their alchemy, all the things that backfired. Shui pointedly asks about his father’s claims that Berthold had met the young heir-apparent to the Xingese throne, which prompts Berthold to share the entire story. 

In some way or another, all the stories come back to love. Love of country, of family, of teammates, of power. 

He doesn’t want to overstay his welcome and decides he will leave to let the family grieve - just them. He’d been itching for a new adventure, and time spent with Master Kuo and his family had renewed it with a fierce hunger. So he makes a decision, and he’s giddy with it.

He’ll retrace his journeyman travels from Xing, down to Aerugo, and then east to Creta. From there, he can’t say, but it starts him out on a path. He feels strong and ready. 

But what he won’t admit is how heavily Ishval weighs. He misses Riza and wonders what progress she’s made just southwest of Xing, in the unforgiving desert. They’ve been able to exchange letters periodically, but it’s nothing like sitting next to her with a cup of coffee and a few spare hours to swap stories. It’s not like seeing it firsthand.

He has a lot of questions for her. He’s especially curious about the way she refers to Roy in her letters. It’s more intimate, more personal, than before. She writes “we” and “our” far more often than any other pronouns, but is never outright about their status. He suspects they’re living together, at least. He’ll find out when he sees her next...if he can ever work up the courage to go to her. 

The truth is simple: Ishval frightens him. Riza and Roy struggle with their demons; Berthold has his own, deep down. The responsibility he feels for giving the military the Hawk’s Eye and the Flame Alchemist still weighs heavy on him. He knows the answer is to face his troubles directly: go to Xing. Reunite with his daughter. Stay and work, rebuild.

But that would mean looking into the eyes of Ishvalans who lost everything because of his kin. It would mean seeing scorch marks and bullet holes and bloodstains littering their holy land and knowing that he had a part in it. 

He doesn’t forgive himself. He didn’t mean what he’d said to Riza, not really - that they’d learn to forgive and accept forgiveness. He doesn’t accept forgiveness. He doesn’t deserve to receive it. 

So he’ll travel and he’ll avoid those snarling thoughts that claw at him while he sleeps. He’ll focus on the feel of the road under his tires and practicing his Aerugonian and conversational Cretan. He’ll look forward to writing Riza a letter when he settles in his new town, and telling her he misses her.

His first year on the road passes with the blink of an eye. Aerugo is hot and bright and quickly becomes his favorite place as he picks his way along the coast, stopping in their villages for months at a time. The ocean breeze is briny and calming. The sounds of the waves distract him well enough that he finds it easier and easier to push thoughts of Ishval away. 

The metaphorical distance is easier with a geographic one to hide behind and he finds Ishval further and further away when he ventures east into Creta and settles in the mountainous outskirts of landlocked Table City. The air is humid, but fresh and clean, and he prefers it immensely to the smoggy outline of the urbania lurking beyond the mountain region. 

One day, however, a letter from Riza arrives in the mail. He pops the seal from the envelope and extracts several pages with her neat, lilting penmanship. But there - there’s something tucked into the pages. He pulls the little black and white photograph from the folds. 

It takes him a moment to realize just what this blurry square of film is illustrating. He slowly makes the connections between the little curve of the head and the tucked-in arms and legs. Berthold laughs aloud, covering his mouth with his hand. _Well, I’ll be damned,_ he thinks, and the prick of tears against his lashes isn’t enough to convey his joy. For a moment, he forgets that there’s a letter to read.

Riza’s going to have a baby.

* * *

_Dad --_

_We’re nearing the end of summer in Ishval, and the mornings and nights are getting cooler. It’s a blessing to wake in the middle of the night without finding I’ve sweat through the sheets. I’d even reason to say it’s comfortable. At this moment, there’s a refreshing breeze sweeping in through the open window. I’ll think of it fondly when the sun is high in the sky and we’re working long hours in a humid tent._

_There’s a lovely obstetrician on staff at the hospital. She’s been here since day one and has such a benevolent heart for Ishval with the kind of empathy everyone strives to share. There are many women with young children and newborns; I am her only pregnant patient at present, though we suspect that there are many more women in the family way who aren’t comfortable coming to the hospital. We’re both hoping that having my appointments and labor here will help build trust as I work in the community._

_I was due yesterday, but my doctor thinks that the little one will be at least another week; she did warn me that sometimes firstborns want to gestate for longer. I can’t fathom the idea of another hour let alone another week. The baby is moving constantly. I can only imagine she’s stretching her legs and getting ready to greet the world, and I have a bag packed and ready by the bedroom door for when she decides it’s time. Black Hayate is restless, too; he used to snuggle against me at night, but now whenever he puts his head on my stomach he whimpers. If only he could talk._

_We don’t know for sure if it’s a girl. But the Ishvalan women have commented that I’m carrying high, and I’m craving lots of sweet things, and my blood pressure is a bit elevated. They all say it’s a sure sign that I’m having a girl. They also say that sympathy weight on part of the father indicates the same thing; I think they just want to tease poor Roy._

_I’ve been reading through mom’s journals that you sent me; they’ve been such a comfort, and I’m thankful you thought to check the floorboard under your bed before you left. I forgot how she used to squirrel things away. She writes so beautifully, and I’m relieved she thought to document her months when she was pregnant with me. It makes me smile when she describes how badly her feet and ankles swelled up. As I’m writing this, I have my feet propped up for the same reason._

_We’ve been in Ishval for nearly two years, and the progress is remarkable. It doesn’t look like the same region we found when we arrived. It’s still hard to walk through some of the districts, but it feels right to be here. I feel like I’m making a real difference._

_I think you would like it here. It’s the exact climate you enjoy, and if you’re truly interested in working, there’s much to do. I know you’re enjoying your travels, but I’d love it if you came to live with us for a while. I miss you, and I want my baby to know you._

_Let me know how you are. I want to know all about Creta. Your last letter was so beautifully written I almost thought I was sitting there next to you._

_Please write back soon._

_P.S. Any ideas for names? Roy wants to wait to meet her, but I’m worried I still won’t know._

_Love, Riza_

* * *

_Dear Elizabeth,_

_I was so excited to receive your letter I stopped my day just to read it. I’ve been counting the days to your due date and have been wondering every hour if you’ve been able to meet your baby yet. I’m overjoyed just thinking about it. Welcoming you into the world is still the greatest gift of my life, and I know this little one will bring just as much happiness to you and Roy._

_How interesting the way your Ishvalan friends predict the baby’s gender! If I remember correctly, your mother carried quite low with you. And you’ve always had a penchant for sweets, dear one, especially when you were little. I’m not sure if your mother wrote this down, but she once ate an entire carton of fruit turnovers from Zimmerman’s bakery in one sitting, and then proceeded to badger me about dinner! Even now it makes me smile._

_You’re right about Ishval’s climate; it’s just what I enjoy. Creta is still humid all day long, even after a thunderstorm, but you’d be hard-pressed to find nicer weather. Just yesterday I spent an hour in the morning hiking off the beaten path and came across a hidden waterfall, untouched by anything but nature. I left no trace, of course, and with any luck, it’ll stay pure._

_Throughout my travels, I wonder what you and Roy would think of these beautiful places. Perhaps we’ll be able to come here together someday._

_I’d love to join you in Ishval, dear, but admit I am apprehensive to deviate from my schedule. I may just have to cut my trip short to meet my new grandchild. I’m curious to see the reconstruction for myself, and I do miss you so._

_I look forward to hearing more from you. Make sure Roy helps you as much as you need; I know you’ll try to do it all yourself!_

_P.S. Roy’s right; meet your baby first, and the name will come to you._

_Love you - Dad._

* * *

_Dad --_

_Our friends were right: we have a little girl._

_She is the most perfect little baby I’ve ever laid eyes on. I cannot believe that she’s mine. We’re so in love. And Roy is a natural with her; even you would be impressed._

_One of the soldiers here has a polaroid camera and let us take a few pictures to send to family and friends; I’ve enclosed one for you. Isn’t she beautiful? She looks just like Roy with all that black hair, but he insists she has my face. We’ll see when she gets older._

_When I was pregnant and too uncomfortable to sleep, I used to flip through Grandma Sophie’s album of pressed flowers. Do you know how some things just smell like home? The album is one of those, and it made me think of you, and her. When I was little, I imagined she had filled that book with flowers just for me because she knew we wouldn’t get to meet. I know that’s silly, but I thought about that a lot, especially recently. The baby always seemed to be less restless when I flipped through it._

_All of that to say, I hope you don’t mind that we’ve named her Sophie. When she was born, she just looked like she was meant to receive that name._

_So, I’m pleased to introduce you through letters to Sophia Xiulan Mustang. Born September 18, 1917 at 6:35 a.m. 7.3 pounds, 20 inches long. Named for Grandma Sophie and Roy’s mother._

_I can’t wait for you to meet her. Do you know when you’ll be able to make the trip? I’ve been thinking about you and mom a lot. I have to admit, it was harder than I thought to do this without you. I love our letters, but I wish I could walk through town with you and show you around. I wish I had been able to give you the sonogram picture in person. I wish you’d been able to hold her after she was born. We’re not a full family without you here._

_I miss you more every day. Please come see us soon._

_Love, Riza_

_\--_

_Dear Elizabeth,_

_I am getting sentimental in my old age. When I saw Sophie’s picture and read your letter, I cried for hours. What a beautiful gift you have. I’m so proud of you, my sweet girl. Your mother is too; I can feel her spirit’s joy all around. She is always with you, even when you can’t feel her. I thank the heavens for your and baby Sophie’s health. It breaks my heart to be apart from you now more than ever._

_And of course, I don’t mind that you named her after Mother. She would be so touched, just as I am._

_I am leaving Creta for Ishval tomorrow, but I must travel through some volatile regions to get there. I am not sure what news you’re able to receive in Ishval, but Creta’s borders are tricky these days. There is civil unrest and they are putting restrictions in place for certain regions as a safety measure. I’m planning my route to avoid much trouble, but it will take me a bit longer than normal to reach you. I should arrive at the Ishvalan military outpost in one week. I think I remember from one of your earlier letters that new visitors will need an escort into the city - would you mind letting someone know to expect me?_

_I’m counting down the days till I can see you again. Stay well, darling. Please give Sophie one thousand kisses from her Papa._

_Love you -- Dad._

_\--_

_Dear Elizabeth,_

_As I’m sure you’ve realized by now, I’ve missed my planned arrival date. I write to tell you that I am alive and well and not in any danger. There is nothing to worry about._

_It breaks my heart to let you know, however, that complications in Creta have resulted in a country-wide lockdown and I am unable to cross the border into Ishval at present. I am in touch with the Amestrian embassy daily to inquire about extradition, but there is no news to share. Unofficially, I’m hearing that it may take several months to be permitted to leave._

_I’m so sorry, my dear. I had no idea this was going to happen. I am longing to meet Sophie and see you again._

_How is everyone doing? Are you getting enough sleep? Is the reconstruction still blazing ahead without you? Don’t tell me you’ve tried to go back to work already. And I’ll know if you’re lying - I’ll write to Roy myself and find out the truth._

_If you can, I’d love to see more pictures of Sophie. If I send money, do you think your soldier friend would be able to acquire more film for his camera?_

_You can write back to the return address on the envelope. They have me housed in Table City with a few other foreigners who are trapped here. I’m sure we’ll end up great friends at the end of all this._

_I promise this will all be over soon. It’s a minor hiccup on my way to you._

_Love you - Dad._

_\--_

_Dad -_

_I’ve been worried sick since you didn’t arrive at the outpost. I was terrified something horrible had happened to you. Thank you for your letter - Roy can attest, I was a mess until I read it._

_We’ve heard murmurs of the civil unrest in Creta but I didn’t realize it was this bad. I’m amazed that they’ve closed the borders. Although, given the available alternatives, I think we can live with a few more months of separation, don’t you?_

_I’m happy to answer your questions, but I have a few of my own._

_Everyone is doing fine; just worried about you. Roy and I are exhausted, but we’re happy. Sophie has been mostly sleeping through the night and eats a lot, as babies do, and she’s gaining weight quickly. Our obstetrician is pleased with her progress. She loves to move as much as she can; I can tell already that I’m going to be running after her once she finds her legs. She loves to be cuddled, and I think she might like Roy more than me. It started as a joke, but I believe it to be true! She squeals and kicks her legs every time she sees him, and of course, he spoils her rotten._

_Don’t worry; I’m not allowed to go back to work yet. It’s a nice gesture, and I do enjoy being home with Sophie, but I’m starting to feel anxious. There’s still so much to do. And yes, it’s going just fine without me, but I long to get back to it. You know I always feel my best when I’m doing something meaningful._

_Did you know that when Ishvalan women go back to work they strap their babies to their backs and take them along? I think I should do that with Sophie. We can tell she likes the feeling of being carried; she’d sleep all day in a sling._

_Keep your money. You need that. We’ll send you as many pictures as we can. Here’s one of my favorites; her first bath. Doesn’t she look insulted? I recognize that scowl; you used to wear the same one when you and Grandpa Geralt weren’t getting along._

_Also, I hope you don’t mind, but I wrote him asking for help with your situation because I have the sneaking suspicion that you won’t. If the Amestrian Fuhrer can’t help his son-in-law, then maybe you should just apply for Cretan citizenship. I kid, of course. I wish you were here._

_Are you safe? Are you getting enough to eat? Are the other foreigners getting help from their countries? If you’re being detained, please say so. I know you always say that it’ll take more than this to get you down, but I worry about your health. Are there rules about what we can send in the post? If so, let us know what you need and we’ll do our best. I hope my letters are able to get through._

_Write back as soon as you can._

_Love, Riza_

* * *

  
  


Berthold can taste bitterness while he watches Sophie grow through pictures. She has big amber eyes and wild, dark, curly hair, a precocious, gummy smile and is Riza through and through. She is chunky and round like a ham hock in a picture he receives marked “Sophie - 9 months old” on the back. In it, she has a determined pout on her face while standing on her wobbly legs. She’s gripping Riza’s fingers for stability. Her mother's bright smile is contagious, even through film. 

Berthold stares at it for hours. He remembers moments like that as if they’d happened yesterday.

All in all, he spends nearly a year in Creta. Then he receives word: he is free to leave.

* * *

A week later, Berthold arrives at the Ishvalan military outpost where an official escort accompanies him into the main district. He looks out the window at every person they pass, hoping to see a familiar head of golden blonde hair. When they arrive at the main hub of the city, Berthold practically jumps out of the car and heads in the direction of their working tent, following his escort’s directions. 

His heart is pounding like mad in this heat. He’s disoriented and nervous and excited. 

And there. 

Riza is staring at him with her mouth agape, a clipboard slipping from her hands and clattering to the floor. She pushes past her colleagues and rushes for him, and with a great cry, Berthold crushes his daughter into his arms. Her elated wail catches the attention of her colleagues in the tent and several townspeople; they pause to watch the exchange. When Riza pulls away, her eyes are puffy and red. They take a moment to wipe their tears away. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she says. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t write ahead,” he apologizes as he squeezes her shoulders. “They released me and I came straight here. I was too anxious. I had to name-drop just to get the fellow to take me in.”

“I’m glad you did,” she says and hugs him again. 

He can catch a glimpse of the reconstruction over her shoulder. They’re in the city center surrounded by new buildings glistening white in the sun. Overhead, there isn’t a cloud in the clear blue sky. The square is bustling with people of all ages, white-haired and dark-skinned. New storefronts dot the square along with heady-scented prepared food stalls and vendors of every variety. Spices, teas, coffee, and oils; fabrics and raw materials; fruits and vegetables, meat and grain. Berthold wouldn’t have known that this was a warzone not even a decade ago. 

A blunt nudge butts up against Berthold’s leg, and he squawks in delight at the sight on Black Hayate, smiling up at him while he pants. His littlest friend is practically vibrating in excitement when he leans down to scratch him behind the ears. 

“Oh, did you miss me, Hayate? Well, I’ve missed you too! Have you been a good boy?”

Hayate licks his hand in response, emitting a high yip. Riza laughs. 

“He adjusted faster than anyone. You should see him running on the sand dunes,” she says.

“I hope to see just that,” Berthold says. He and Riza stare out into the town and breathe in the scent of home, of rebirth. He can’t believe he’s here.

Riza touches him lightly on the shoulder and jerks her head toward the billowing white tents behind them. “I believe there’s a little one who’s been waiting to meet you.”

Berthold’s excitement mingles with nervousness as he follows Riza into the tent, where it appears their team is utilizing it as a makeshift office. Further back, behind a swell of soldiers chattering and collaborating, he can see Roy’s mess of dark hair. Berthold enters the fray and makes his way toward him. Roy raises a hand in greeting when he catches sight of them, and Berthold’s breath hitches in his throat. Sure enough, a curious baby girl with large amber eyes sits on her father’s hip, a pacifier in her mouth. Roy gets her attention and points; she follows his gestures to where Berthold is standing, his heart in his throat.

“Hey, Soph; who’s that?” says Roy. The little girl stares ahead, past Berthold, locking onto her approaching mother; her feet start to kick at the sight of her. Riza goes to Roy’s side and smooths down her daughter’s hair. Turning, she rests her hand on Roy’s shoulder and smiles back at Berthold; she beckons him to come closer.

She leans down to Sophie as he steps forward, tentatively. 

“That’s your Papa, who we’ve told you all about,” she whispers gently. “He’s waited a long time to meet you. 

Sophie blinks owlishly as he reaches them. Berthold smiles and his eyes sting. 

“Hello, Little Bird.”

* * *

In the following weeks, Berthold acclimates. 

He moves into Roy and Riza’s small home. He walks the city streets with Riza and she points out their various projects. He meets many members of Roy’s legion of soldiers and civilians on staff for the reconstruction. He meets Ishvalans in their communities, curious and apprehensive and thoughtful and tense. 

He takes early shifts at the hospital to help sanitize the equipment for a long day of appointments. He uses elemental alchemy to form great craters in the sand and bedrock so they can install irrigation channels. He helps install solar-powered panels to the tops of buildings, chops leeks and potatoes and carrots at the community kitchen, hauls bags of rice, and buckets of water until he’s dripping with sweat. 

The best part, however, is the time he spends in town. After he’s cleaned up, he stops to purchase crispy scoops of falafel, spicy arayes, and savory shish tawook. He chats with the cooks and becomes familiar with some of the townspeople. He picks up bits of Ishvalan dialect and practices, testing the words on his tongue while he walks and munches. 

And then, it’s time.

He makes his way to the small daycare at the end of the block and smiles his greeting to a familiar heart-shaped face. Zipporah, their next-door neighbor, is here just as she is every day to pick up her son.

He can pick out Sophie instantly, her curly dark hair standing out in a sea of silver-white. Her caretaker waves to him and he enters with Zipporah; she comes toward them with Sophie holding one hand and Zaccheus, Zipporah’s son, gripping the other.

Sophie instantly raises her arms toward her grandfather and Berthold indulges her without question, lifting her onto his hip with a grunt. She’s getting heavy, but he’ll carry her around until his arms give out. 

Zaccheus is a little older than Sophie and is talking more with words than broken baby babble, and chatters animatedly to his mother as they make their way to leave. Zipporah strokes his silken hair, and he holds up a rock he’d found in his chubby fist as a gift to her, which makes her smile.

Berthold has found himself in an unofficial pattern; he and Zipporah typically arrive at the daycare at the same time in the afternoon to pick up the children, so they walk side by side the entire way home. The children typically walk between them, holding hands, but today Sophie must have been feeling a little anxious; he can tell in the way she clings to him.

Berthold and Zipporah don’t normally speak; he knows very little of the Ishvalan dialect but for the basic greetings and what he’s learned from his time in town, and he wouldn’t assume she would understand him if he tried to engage her. 

She knows his name though and addresses him as such when they part. And Zaccheus is perceptive, so he parrots his mother - though he can’t say his whole name, so it often comes out as “Bird.” 

They complete their typical silent route home, and Zipporah regards him with a soft utterance “Berthold” as always and an incline of her head before she enters her home. Zaccheus waves enthusiastically at him and Sophie before his mother ushers him inside. 

“Yalla bye, Bird! Yalla bye, So!” he squeaks in Amestrian. 

“Ya-bye!” Sophie chirps in reply. Berthold offers a lame wave. 

He wonders what Zipporah thinks of all this. According to Riza, she was one of the first displaced Isvhalans to show interest in coming back. She doesn’t seem afraid of him, or even angry with him, her Amestrian neighbor. He’d even say they’re nearly friends, in their own quiet way.

It’s nice to have a friend.

* * *

When they enter their home, it is cool, quiet, and dark. Berthold knows that Riza and Roy won’t be home for another few hours, so he sets to work on lunch while Sophie toddles about the first floor of the house. He feeds her, burps her, and changes her diaper. Then, as the sun is beginning to crest the house as the early afternoon starts its journey late, he gathers Sophie into his arms and snatches a familiar tome from the bookshelf. Then, he settles into a hammock by the open window for his favorite part of the day.

Normally, when Berthold reads to her, she sprawls heavy against his chest and is asleep in minutes. He’ll lay there in the hammock with his sleeping granddaughter’s head against his shoulder, a puddle of drool dampening his shirt, and he’ll inevitably fall asleep, too. 

Today, Sophie is squirming with energy and is crawling all over him, not all interested in settling down for her afternoon nap. She pats his head, no doubt a mimic of all the times she’s seen her father stroke her mother’s hair. Eventually, she turns herself around so that her diapered bottom is square in Berthold’s face, trying to climb down, and he grunts as he rights her and settles the baby on his lap. 

In front of him, he opens the thickly bound book of pressed flowers. Sophie’s attention is hooked in an instant, following the path his hands take from the flip of each page to the tap at each flower. She cooes and slaps the pages with the flats of her hands. 

“What do we have here?” Berthold says. She curls her first around his thumb and he turns another page. “Apple blossom...now what does that say?”

Sophie is able to say “Mama” and “Da” and “Pa”. She waves and says "hi" and tries for "yalla bye" like her Ishvalan friends. She speaks in some broken syllables, but mostly in babbles, screams, and giggles. As Berthold runs his fingers over the worn script under the pressed apple blossom and reads it aloud to her, she matches his movements. 

“I prefer _you_ ,” Berthold says with a tickle to her paunchy little belly. “Before all.”

Sophie giggles and stuffs her thumb in her mouth, turning her round whiskey-colored eyes to him. As he continues turning each page, Sophie gets sleepier and sleepier, and eventually sags against him with her thumb stuck in her mouth. Berthold quietly shuts the book on his lap and leans back, the sun warming them both as they slip into their dreams. 

* * *

Riza is anxious to get home. It’s been a long, hard day and she’s missed her little girl. 

She and Roy chat about their day as they begin their walk down the dirt road toward their complex with Black Hayate on their heels, but someone behind them has called Roy’s name. With a kiss on Riza’s forehead, he promises he’ll be back soon and goes off to solve another problem. Riza continues on with a whistle to Hayate. The instant she opens the door, her posture sags, her body sore and tired after another day. She is looking forward to a shower.

The house is quiet and serene. A cozy breeze is wafting down the stairs, which tells her that a window must be open on the second floor. She trots up the stairs, excited to see two of her favorite people, and stops at the threshold of the den. 

There, Berthold dozes in the shade of the window while Sophie nestles deeper into the crook of his shoulder. They both snore just a little, and Riza is dying to take a picture. Not for the first time, she curses herself for never having one nearby 

Both of them are dead to the world, so deep in their sleep that they don’t move when Riza leans down to kiss them both on the cheek. The book of pressed flowers is perched precariously on Berthold’s knee, so Riza slips it from his grasp and places it back on the bookshelf. She retires for a shower just as she hears the door open. 

The hot water is lukewarm and divine on her hot skin. She soaps herself and washes the grime from her body, luxuriating in the sweet coconut-scented shower gel. She’s exhausted today, just like all days, and doesn’t realize she’s leaning her head against the shower wall until a loud snap of the bathroom door jerks her out of her reverie. A great whoosh of cold air makes her shiver as Roy enters the shower behind her. 

“Hey there,” he says, pulling the plastic curtain behind him. “Sorry I had to peel off earlier.”

“That’s alright,” she says, hooking her arms around his waist to trade places. He sighs under the shower pressure while she begins to massage her shampoo into her hair. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” he says. “Just confirming the latest skilled civilian caravan to arrive tomorrow.”

Riza hums in affirmation, but it quickly turns to a soft moan as Roy reaches up to sink his fingers into her hair. He gently massages her soapy scalp, and she instinctively takes a step back until her back is pressed against his chest.

“That feels good,” she cooes. 

“Good,” he murmurs and places a kiss on her clean shoulder blade.

With the baby, the rebuild, and now Berthold’s presence in their home, they’ve had next to no opportunities to be intimate. She doesn’t realize how much she’s missed his hands on her body until he’s working his fingers through her knotted hair, rinsing the shampoo, and following it with a dollop of conditioner. The silky cream smells delightful. 

She sighs, a shiver wracking her. His gentle hands drop from the ends of her cropped hair to her neck, where he places a soft kiss. Then to her shoulders, where he uses his thumbs to knead at the knots that have gnarled her muscles. She lets out an audible whine when he works out a particularly stubborn one; she presses her hands against the wall of the narrow shower as he goes. 

He drags his lips against her back, her skin smooth and unmarked but for a smattering of freckles where the sun has kissed her. Those hands of his trail down her back, caressing her spine, the dimples at the small, the swell of her backside. He grazes her full hips and the silvery stretch marks that glide around her stomach. Up, tickling her ribcage and her sides, the fluttering strokes of his fingertips against her nipples that make her knees weak. All the while, he trails kisses down her temple, behind her ear, down her neck and shoulder.

She’d forgotten how just this could make her head spin. 

God, she’s missed him. 

His hand travels down her stomach to the thatch of curls between her thighs, and he’s nearly there when she grabs his hand. 

“We can’t,” she groans. “The baby--”

“--Is asleep,” he finishes, tipping her jaw back toward him to press a searing kiss to her lips. 

“Mmnph,” she mumbles, pulling away just enough that her lips still brush his when she speaks. “Not for long. You know she always wakes up when we--”

He dips his fingers low, and she can’t catch her breath. It’s an itch she hadn’t known needed a scratch, and feels so, so good. 

His deep chuckle rumbles all the way from his throat to his chest; she can feel those delicious vibrations in her back, and it lights her on fire. 

“A freight train couldn’t wake those two,” he says, swirling and rubbing in that way that makes her whimper. “And I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” she hisses. She clutches his wrist and luxuriates in the sweet things he’s doing to her, the hum of the shower pelting them in a delicious rhythm. She loves the feel of him pressed up against her like this, warm and strong.

Then, there’s a familiar pressure against her backside, and an experimental roll of her hips makes him choke. 

“Sorry,” she says. 

He buries his face in her neck, and she involuntarily rocks against his fingers as each stroke becomes slower and deeper. 

“Can we?” he asks breathlessly. 

She wants to say yes. She really does. She’s missed the way they move together.

“I’m ovulating,” she admits, but the end of the word is caught up in a breathy gasp as pleasure roils through her body like a lightning strike. With a sharp cry, she falls against the shower wall, her forehead resting over her clasped hands. Roy’s body follows hers, caging her in with his arms on either side of her, his head in the crook of her neck, and more of him hard and hot against her back. 

The water has long since begun to run cold, but it feels refreshing on their pinking skin. 

“I thought you were on the pill,” he says. After she’s caught her breath and her legs have stopped trembling, she turns in the circle of his arms and backs him up under the cool stream. She reaches for the shampoo. 

“I was,” she says. “But I ran out...we haven’t been having sex...I keep forgetting to ask my doctor for more...so here we are.” She squeezes a glob of shampoo into her hands and reaches up to lather his hair. He shivers under the rake of her nails.

“That isn’t anything to do with you,” he says. “The lack of...you know.”

“I know. We’re busy. We have a baby. I just want to sleep through the night for once.”

“Imagine falling asleep before sunset,” he whispers huskily near her ear. Those hands again. They drop down to grip her behind. “And not waking up once.” He gives her bottom a squeeze. “And in the morning...”

“Yes?” she asks. 

“You’re _refreshed.”_

She exaggerates a wanton moan and follows it with a laugh while she rinses the suds from his hair. Next, she pours out a generous amount of conditioner. His hair is thick and tough, just like Sophie’s. But at least he doesn’t cry when she tries to guide the tangles out with her fingers.

“Well, since you’re ovulating...how about we try for another?” he asks as he waggles his eyebrows. He gives her bottom a slap.

Riza rolls her eyes and bats him away. “Very funny. Turn around and let me get your back.”

She scrubs him harshly with the coconut shower gel. He has a sunburn on his shoulders that is starting to peel, and he flinches each time the washcloth passes over the sensitive skin. 

“So, is that a no?”

She sighs. “It’s a ‘not right now,'” she says. “We’re overwhelmed enough as it is. _You_ just turned the idea of a restful night’s sleep into something I’ll fantasize about later.” She pats him on the back, and he turns back around. “And Sophie is still so young.”

Two babies? The thought makes her cringe. They’d never survive. 

But she did love being pregnant. And so did Roy. Together they’d marveled at what her body was capable of, creating life instead of taking it. Even when she was swollen and sick, he always made her feel beautiful.

While his hair soaks in the conditioner, Roy wraps his arms around her.

“She is,” he agrees. “But still.”

“You just want something in particular,” she teases, and he flounders an excuse. But his body doesn’t lie, so she pulls back. 

“I’ll make it up to you,” she says. He cocks an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Mmhmm,” she hums. She braces herself with his forearms as she sinks down to her knees in front of him.

“Easy, Lieutenant,” he warns huskily.

“Hush, Colonel,” she chides. “Your queen commands it.”

* * *

If Ishval during the day is a kaleidoscope of color, then it’s a sparkling diamond at night. The sun has nearly set, and Berthold takes in a leisurely walk across the high sand dunes beyond the city with his family. 

Sophie has been following Black Hayate across the sand ripples with steadfast determination. She stumbles frequently, but the sand is soft, and Roy is always a step behind her to lift her back onto her feet. It’s cooler up here; the sand doesn’t hold onto the heat, and Berthold is grateful for the white cloak they had loaned him before they made the trek. Riza strolls next to Berthold, swaddled in a light gauzy wrap. She has a serene look on her face, eyes crinkling as she watches Roy jog after Sophie when she begins toddling faster and faster after the dog.

“You were just like that when you started walking,” Berthold reminisces fondly. “Always on the move. Impossible to keep up with.”

Riza chuckles. “I don’t know how you did it.”

Up ahead, Sophie comes trotting back to Roy with a tiny desert flower clutched in her chubby fist. 

“Why thank you, Sophie-girl!” Roy’s voice carries in the wind. He swings her up onto his hip and brushes a stream of sand from her shirt. The dusky sky is getting darker, stars pin-pricking their way across the horizon line. Roy points upwards; Sophie reaches a finger out in a perfect mimic. 

“It was hard,” Berthold admits. “But it was worth it. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that.”

Riza nods and hums in agreement. 

As she moves to readjust her wrap, Berthold catches sight of her left hand. He hadn’t noticed before, but there’s a short length of twine wrapped around her ring finger. He must stare a bit too long, because Riza notices, and self-consciously twiddles the twine with her fingers. 

“We started seeing each other again after the Promised Day,” she says. “We tried to keep it under wraps, but people notice things. It got back some higher-ups; we’re not sure how. There were rumors...threats of court-martials...one of us getting pulled out and put on desk duty back home...a discharge...”

Berthold frowns. “Your grandfather would have never allowed that,” he reminds her. 

She shakes her head. “I don’t deserve any more preferential treatment than anyone else. I asked him not to do anything.”

He shrugs; he gets it. If Fuhrer Bradley had stepped in his for one of his kin like that, he’d be critical of that. It would seem unfair. Not to mention, Roy’s bigger ambitions wouldn’t need the bad publicity. Still, he wonders if old Grumman didn’t have some influence anyhow. If someone complained loudly enough, reconstruction be damned, one of them could have easily been replaced.

“One of the generals tried to make good on that threat,” she continues. “But the Ishvalans intervened. A monk, who fought with us. He offered to marry us. It’s ceremonial, and not legally binding..but it is on par with a spiritual bond. And spiritual bonds are sacred to the Ishvalans. To interfere would have been a great insult.”

Berthold smirks. There were some things the Amestrian military couldn’t ruin after all. Not without destroying all their progress, anyway.

“So you’re married in Ishval...but what happens when you go back?” he asks warily. 

She stops abruptly, staring out into the open desert with a blank look in her eye. “We pray that the fraternization laws are amended in the meantime,” she says flatly. 

“And if they aren’t?”

She inclines her head to him with a weary look on her face. Clearly, this is something that they’ve discussed, perhaps even fought about, at length. 

“We don’t know,” she says softly. 

He pauses, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. 

“Perhaps it’s in your best interest to stay in Ishval.”

“Dad,” she murmurs. “You know we couldn’t.”

He shrugs. “Something to think about.”

He bumps her shoulder good-naturedly, coaxing a smile to her lips. They begin to stroll again. 

“So, he’s your husband,” he says. 

She nods. “He’s my husband.”

“And you’re happy?”

Riza bows her head to hide a blush, a smile crossing her lips. “Really happy.”

A shooting star pivots across the sky. Roy and Sophie squeal in tandem. “Wow!”

“It’s just…” she starts. “Why do I get to be happy?”

Berthold turns to her. “Elizabeth…”

She blinks away a wave of stubborn tears. “Sometimes it feels wrong to be so fortunate, here. To receive their kindness. I don’t deserve it.”

Berthold places a firm hand on her shoulder.

“You are not your past,” he says. “You are making amends and creating life. You are doing what you can; you’ve gotten back up, and you are better for it.”

Riza shrugs, pushing away tears with the heel of her hands. 

“The world is better for having you in it,” Berthold asserts. “I’m proud to say you’re mine, and that little girl--” He points ahead. “--is going to grow up in a better world because of you.”

A few tears slip down her cheeks. “That’s not true."

“It is,” he insists. “She’d be so proud of you. Look at the beautiful things you’ve done.”

Riza chokes out a laugh. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot. I really miss her.”

Berthold hums. “Me too.”

“Have you...have you thought about how the world is better for having you, too?” she asks. Berthold stares at her, and she nods encouragingly. “Do you know you’re worthy of the forgiveness you’ve shown me?”

Berthold blinks and stares off into the distance where Roy has set Sophie down, and she is bounding toward them full of indistinguishable giggles and the call of “Mama! Mama!”

“I think I’m finally seeing that it’s possible,” he says, smiling at his granddaughter. “Yes, I think I do.”

Riza leans down to catch her in her arms, hoisting her up and hooking her around her hip. 

“I’m glad,” she says, flashing him a relieved grin. 

Roy catches up, running a hand through his hair.

“The stars here are different than back home,” he says.

And he’s right; the constellation Eziravete stands proud and regal overhead in her autumn travels. But she doesn’t hold a candle to her human counterpart at Berthold’s side, cradling her princess.

Hand in hand, Roy and Riza stroll ahead while Berthold hangs back. Sophie’s head bobs on Riza’s shoulder, her eyes heavy. After a moment, Riza realizes that Berthold is no longer by her side, so she turns and looks for him. 

“Dad? You ready to go back?

Berthold waves his hand. “You go on ahead,” he says. “I’m going to stay out for a bit longer.”

She inclines her head. “Alright. Don’t be long, okay?”

He smiles. “Okay.”

The three of them pick their way down the sand dunes, Roy’s hand at the small of her back. They start back toward town, toward their home with its open window and mosquito net, their nursery, their present and future, their plans. As the ground becomes stable again, Roy takes Riza’s hand in his and kisses it. 

Berthold soaks in the silence, the cool air tickling his face and tangling his hair. He tips his head back and breaths it in, and if he listens hard enough, he can almost hear Ava’s laugh lacing through the wind. 

The sun leaves a soft pink rind on the horizon, stark and warm against the deep indigo sky. Berthold lets the wind pass through his fingers and smiles. 

“What do you say, Ava?” he says aloud. “Seems the kids will be okay.”

* * *

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap, pals! Hope you enjoyed this roller coaster as much as I did. Whew.
> 
> This chapter...this chapter. I went back so many times to do rewrites, add scenes, remove scenes, cut a TON of content (only to replace it with even more), and just overall took my sweet time to get this where I wanted it. I finally feel satisfied. And even though this is more Berthold's story than Royai's, let's be real...I can't write anything for those two crazy kids without mixing up some spices. 
> 
> And what a treat it was to write Riza from this perspective. I suspect she'd still be a pretty serious, pragmatic woman, but adding in that playful angle when she's with the people she cares about most was really satisfying. Every part of this was just so dang fun.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts, and thanks for reading!


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